Erik van der Marel

Key Takeaway 1: What are Intellectual Property Rights and why do they matter? Intellectual Property gives the creator (e.g. an artist, a company doing R&D, indigenous peoples, a creative studio) an exclusive right over the commercial use of that intellectual creation for a certain period of time. IP motivates people/companies to invest in innovation by providing the opportunity to recoup the investments made. By motivating such new discoveries, innovations and...

Several countries around the world have implemented a tax on digital services, commonly called Digital Services Tax (DST). This policy brief takes a closer look at why some European countries have imposed DSTs but not others. Surely, there are economic explanations behind the fact that Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK have introduced DSTs – but not other countries in Europe. The five tax-imposing countries (here called DST5) have been losing trade...

Novel flows that define the future of globalization require new regulatory approaches, which are likely to differ between countries. So too for regulatory approaches to personal data. Globally, there are three different regulatory models for personal data: the model applied by the US, based on an open approach to transfer data and process data locally; the model developed by the EU, which is a model based on so-called conditional transfers and processing; and...

Globalization isn’t in decline; it is simply changing. Although the COVID-19 crisis has seen a dramatic decline in goods trade, investments and the movement of people, a new type of globalization is emerging. This “new globalization” is based on digital services, research and development, data, ideas, and other intangibles. This development has been going on for a while and has evolved more rapidly after the previous global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008-9....