Daway-Ducanes, Sarah Lynne S.Ramos, Vincent Jerald R.2024-10-022024-10-022016-12https://selib.upd.edu.ph/etdir/handle/123456789/543This paper aims to examine the effects of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) quantity and protection quality on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in a panel of 79 low- and middle-income countries with average per capita real GNIs of not more than $12,475 over the period 2000-2014, also accounting for the existence of nonlinearities. Using the semiparametric Blundell and Bond’s [1998] and Windmeijer’s [2005] two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) to obtain more asymptotically efficient estimates, address dynamic endogeneity issues, and factor in the inclusion of nonstationary macroeconomic variables, this paper finds that for at least half of the countries in the sample, an improvement in IPR protection quality has a positive marginal effect on FDI inflows. Meanwhile, per capita IPR has a negative marginal impact on FDI inflows in more than 95% of the countries in the sample. The nonlinearity in the per capita IPR-FDI nexus is such that increases in IPR applications would not necessarily translate into higher FDI inflows until a minimum scale of IPR applications is reached.enIntellectual Property RightsForeign Direct Investmentdeveloping countriespanel dataThesis