Intellectual Property Protection and the Debt Trap: Patents, Developing Economies, and Development Policy in the Global South
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54938/ijemdss.2026.05.5.850Keywords:
IPP, Debt Trap, Development, Global South, and Developing EconomiesAbstract
This paper is an analytical review of the impact of enforcement of the intellectual property rights (IPR) through patent protection and how the protection has contributed to the divergence between the industrially advanced economies of the Global North and the agrarian, debt-constrained economies of Global South. Using the North-South duopoly model developed by Chin and Grossman (1988,1990) the paper discusses the welfare consequences of the patent protection for the producers and consumers in both regions. By using the World Bank international debt statistics for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and India it situates the framework within the broader question of why the global south has remained locked into low productivity, and agriculture dependent production while accumulating unsustainable levels of external debt. The central argument of the paper documents scale and trajectory of external debt obligations faced by the economies of these countries. They have a weak institutional capacity, limited access to patent protected technology, and structurally underfinanced agricultural sectors that have led to sustained cycle of debt dependency. In the end we have outlined set of public finance-oriented policy recommendations covering research and development investment, agricultural subsidies, and rural credit access with country specific evidence from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Salma Khan, Razia Khan, Muhammad Irfan
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