Welcome to Prof. Edwin Lai's homepage!

My CV

My Research:

Research Interests

• International trade
• Industrial organization
• Economic growth and development
• Technological change

Refereed Journal Articles

• "Outsourcing of Innovation," with Ray Riezman and Ping Wang, Economic Theory, Volume 38, Number 3, March 2009.
• "Parallel Imports and Price Controls," with Gene M. Grossman, RAND Journal of Economics, vol. 39, issue 2, 2008.
• "International Protection of Intellectual Property" (with Gene Grossman), American Economic Review, December 2004, pp.1635-53.
• "Protection of Trade for Innovation: The Roles of Northern and Southern Tariffs" with Larry D. Qiu, Japan and the World Economy, 16 (2004), pp.449-70.
• "A Game-Theoretic Analysis of China's WTO Accession," with Rick Bond and Stephen Ching, Pacific Economic Review, 8: 2 (2003), pp.117-25.
• "The North's intellectual property rights standard for the South?" with Larry D. Qiu, Journal of International Economics, 59 (2003), pp.183-209. The paper also appears in Keith E. Maskus (ed.) The WTO, Intellectual Property Rights and the Knowledge Economy, Edward Elgar, United Kingdom (2004).
• "Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Endogenous Economic Growth," with Y. K. Kwan, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 27 (2003), pp.853-73.
• "Strategic Policy towards Multinationals for Oligopolistic Industries," Review of International Economics, February 2002, pp.200-14.
• "Competition for FDI in the Product Cycles," Japan and the World Economy, 13 (2001), pp.61-81.
• "Adjustment Costs and Gradual Trade Liberalization," with Taiji Furusawa, Journal of International Economics, December 1999, pp. 333-61.
• "Schumpeterian Growth with Gradual Product Obsolescence," Journal of Economic Growth, March 1998, pp. 81-103.
• "International Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Rate of Product Innovation," Journal of Development Economics, February 1998, pp. 133-53.
• "Patent Length and the Rate of Innovation," with Andrew Horowitz, International Economic Review, November 1996, pp. 785-801.
• "The Product Cycle and the World Distribution of Income: A Reformulation," Journal of International Economics, November 1995, pp. 369-82.
• "Learning-by-doing, Technology Choice and Export Promotion," Review of International Economics, June 1995, pp. 186-98.

Chapters in edited volumes

• "Theory of International Policy Coordination in Protection of Ideas," in Intellectual Property, Growth and Trade, Keith E. Maskus, ed., vol. 2 of the series Frontiers of Economics and Globalization, published by Elsevier, 2008.

Discussions/Comments

• Book Review: International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology, edited by Keith E. Maskus and Jerome H. Reichman, Cambridge University Press. Review published in World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7, issue 3, pp.576-79, July 2008.
• Comments on "East Asia and Global Imbalances: Saving, Investment, and Financial Development" by Hiro Ito and Menzie Chinn, in Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose (eds.) Financial Sector Development in the Pacific Rim, The University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp.150-155.
• Comment on "Regulating Services Trade: matching Policies to Objectives" by Richard Snape, in Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger (eds.) Trade in Services in the Asia-Pacific Region, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp.96-7.
• Comment on "Globalization and Harmonization: the case of accounting services in Japan" by Fukunari Kimura, in Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger (eds.) Trade in Services in the Asia-Pacific Region, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp.371-73.

Other Publications

• "Intellectual Property Protection in a Globalizing Era," Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Economic Letter, vol. 3, no. 3, March 2008.
• "The Economic Implications of the Re-unification of Hong Kong with China," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 30, No. 4, October 1997, pp. 735-45.
• "Why is the U.S. Still No.1 ?" Economic Times, Spring 1994, Vol. 3, No. 1, a supplement to Michael Parkin, Economics, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Working Papers

• "The Most-Favored Nation Rule in Club Enlargement Negotiation," manuscript, October 2008.
• "A Theory of Government Procrastination" with Taiji Furusawa, manuscript, July 2011.
• "Globalization of Production and the Technology Transfer Paradox," manuscript, January 2009.
• "Would Global Patent Protection Be Too Weak without International Coordination?" manuscript, April 2011.
• "Understanding China's Trade Flows," with Fred Y. Kwan, manuscript, August 2005.
• "International Protection of Intellectual Property: An Empirical Investigation," with Samuel Wong and Isabel K. Yan, manuscript, December 2008.
• "A Model of Trade with Ricardian Comparative Advantage and Intra-sectoral Firm Heterogeneity," with Haichao FAN and Han (Steffan) QI, manucript, October 2011.

Work in Progress

• "Technology Diffusion and Technological Change"
• "Parallel Imports"
• "International Protection of Intellectual Property with Firm Lobbying"