Judicial protection of intellectual property rights and manipulative behaviors in corporate research and development expenses

This paper explores the relationship between the level of judicial protection of intellectual property rights and the propensity of publicly traded companies to engage in research and development (R&D) manipulation. The data utilized for this study span the years 2011–2020 to show that increasing the intensity of regional judicial protection of IPRs can `effectively reduce the likelihood of corporate R&D manipulation. It is also reduced by the level of judicial protection for intellectual property, primarily through the provision of incentives for high-quality innovations. These findings offer new insights into and principles for inhibiting corporate R&D expenditure manipulations.