PUBLICATIONS

@workingpaper{Asongu2014b_28,
title = {Global trajectories, dynamics, and tendencies of business software piracy: benchmarking IPRs harmonization},
author = {Antonio Andrés R Simplice A. Asongu},
editor = {African 2014 Governance and Development Institute WP/14/011},
url = {http://www.afridev.org/RePEc/agd/agd-wpaper/Global-trajectories-dynamics-and-dynamics-of-business-software-piracy.pdf},
year = {2014},
date = {2014-01-01},
abstract = {In this paper, we examine global trajectories, dynamics, and tendencies of software
piracy to ease the benchmarking of current efforts towards harmonizing the standards and
enforcements of Intellectual Property Rights (henceforth IPRs) protection worldwide. Our
empirical exercise is based on 15 different panel regressions, which together consists of 99
countries. The richness of the dataset allows us to disaggregate countries into fundamental
characteristics of business software piracy based on income-levels (high-income, lower-middleincome,
upper-middle-income and low-income), legal-origins (English common-law, French
civil-law, German civil-law and, Scandinavian civil-law) and, regional proximity (South Asia,
Europe & Central Asia, East Asia & the Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America &
the Caribbean and, Sub-Saharan Africa). Our main finding suggest that, a genuine timeframe for
standardizing IPRs laws in the fight against software piracy is most feasible within a horizon of
4.3 to 10.4 years. In other words, full (100%) convergence within the specified timeframe will
mean the enforcements of IPRs regimes without distinction of nationality or locality within
identified fundamental characteristics of software piracy. The absence of convergence (in
absolute and conditional terms) for the World panel indicates that, blanket policies may not be
effective unless they are contingent on the prevailing trajectories, dynamics and tendencies of
software piracy. Policy implications and caveats are also discussed.},
keywords = {Piracy; Business Software; Software piracy; Intellectual Property Rights; Panel data; Convergence},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {workingpaper}
}