The concept of “freedom to operate” — a term of art in intellectual property management practice — inspires a generalization to capture the freedom established by modern, deep and comprehensive economic partnership agreements for multinational firms to operate internationally in their preferred modes, whether through cross-border trade, establishment of foreign affiliates, entering into joint ventures or licensing production of their proprietary goods and services.
In this video, Dan Ciuriak discusses the asymmetric effects of freedom to operate across economies and across the population of firms, favouring larger markets and larger firms.