Ensaios sobre economia da pirataria

Abstract

The software market has shown an accelerated growth, mainly in the last two decades, motivated by the technological advances around the world. However, the problem of software piracy ended up causing billionaire losses, mainly affecting countries with large volumes of products produced in this market. The protection of intellectual property rights has emerged as an alternative to circumvent problems. However the reduction in piracy rates was not followed by proportionately significant reductions in the commercial value losses resulting from this problem. Within this context, the present work sought to discuss this subject in two essays. The first work aimed to measure the impact of the software piracy on economic growth in order to gain a better understanding of the real consequences of this problem at macroeconomic levels. The results indicate that piracy has a negative relation with economic growth, and that it seems to be non-linear. The second essay aimed to investigate the determinants of piracy, based on socioeconomic and government data. The results suggest that the cost of starting a business as well as the unemployment rate are important factors that motivate this illegal behavior.