Administrative Protection for Sale: Foreign Lobbying & ITC Patent Investigations

• In Event: U.S. Trade Politics

Abstract

How do foreign firms respond to policies protecting domestic industries critical to America’s innovation and growth? We argue that foreign firms may overcome such pro-U.S. bias by directly lobbying administrative agencies responsible for policy implementation. We test this argument based on the United States International Trade Commission (ITC)’s patent investigations. The ITC is a quasi-judicial federal agency that enforces U.S. intellectual property (IP) rights. Unlike previous studies on ITC rulings that examine the political influence of domestic industries, we investigate the impact of firm lobbying by both complainants and respondents for the first time. Using an original dataset that merges the universe of patent investigations with firm lobbying data, we show that foreign respondents’ counteractive lobbying of the ITC helps reduce the pro-U.S. bias in patent rulings. Foreign lobbying is less effective in overcoming administrative bias when cases are IP-intensive. Our findings suggest that lobbying administrative agencies may help foreign firms counteract recent administration’s growing appetite for `America First.’

Authors

• Jieun Lee, University at Buffalo, SUNY

• Minju Kim, Syracuse University