Three essays on intellectual property rights and agricultural change in Africa
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[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation consists of three essays that lie at the intersection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and agricultural development in Africa. In the first, I use a random-effects GLS model on panel data to quantify the relationship between IPRs and agricultural RandD spending in 38 African countries. In the second, I shift the focus to a particular form of agricultural biotechnology, namely genetically-modified (GM) crops. This essay comprises interviews with two major U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology companies, the aim of which is to determine how important IPRs have been in impeding the commercialization of GM crops across Africa. The third essay takes a step back from agriculture specifically and centers on a major institutional barrier to effective IP protection on the continent. As will be shown, the intangibility and non-scarcity of intellectual property necessitates a capable state for its protection, which is largely absent in Africa. Taken together, the conclusions of the first two essays suggest that weak intellectual property rights are not currently a major barrier to agricultural development on the continent. The third demonstrates that even if they were, there are serious institutional impediments to implementing effective IP protection in the African context.
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