Does protecting intellectual property rights matter for trade? The case of Chinaʹs exports to ASEAN-5

This paper examines the impact of intellectual property rights protection on Chinaʹs exports to the ASEAN-5 countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Panel analysis was used to examine empirically the effects of intellectual property rights protection, foreign direct investment (FDI), market size and real exchange rates in ASEAN-5 on Chinaʹs exports. Empirical results show that, except for Indonesia, Chinaʹs exports to the ASEAN-5 countries are negatively impacted by market power effects while global FDI inflows to ASEAN-5 also have displacement effects on Chinaʹs exports. This paper classified importing countries by their level of technology demand. Our findings show that intellectual property rights protection, levels of technology demand and business strategies have different impacts on Chinaʹs exports to these countries.