INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT: ANALYSIS OF 14 SOUTH AND SOUTH EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES, 1970-2005

The main focus of this paper is to examine the impact of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and economic freedom of the world (EFW) on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in a panel of fourteen developing South Asian and Southeast Asian countries over the period 1970-2005. We find that besides other variables IPR exerts positive and significant impact on FDI while EFW produces negative impact on FDI. This implies that property rights protection, good quality institutions and more economic freedom encourages foreign investors to invest more in production sectors and focus less on distributional networks.