explaining agricultural productivity growth an international perspective this article presents multi output multi input total factor productivity tfp growth rates in agriculture for 88 countries over the 1970 2001 period estimated with both stochastic frontier analysis sfa and the more commonly employed data envelopment analysis dea we find results with sfa to be more plausible than with dea and use them to analyze trends across countries and the determinants of tfp growth in developing countries the central finding is that policy and institutional variables including public agricultural expenditure and proagricultural price policy reforms are significant correlates of tfp growth the most significant geographic correlate of tfp growth is distance to the nearest oecd country

employment generation potential of new technology based firms during a recessionary period the case of finland this article analyzes the employment generation potential of new technology based firms during a recessionary period the empirical data is from finland a country that was hit particularly hard by the economic recession between years 1990 and 1993 in spite of the recession the number of ntbfs new technology based firms rose by 17 from 1986 to 1993 in traditional manufacturing industry branches the overall employment fell by as much as 33 during the same period alternative hypotheses to explain the increase in the importance of ntbfs are presented and discussed in the light of research findings both flexible specialization and recession push hypotheses receive support in the empirical data

the impact of integrated aquaculture agriculture on small scale farms in southern malawi sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for sub saharan africa one potential solution is to rely on local farmers knowledge for improved management of diverse on farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises in this article we analyze the farm level impact of one recent example namely the integrated aquaculture agriculture iaa technologies that have been developed and disseminated in a participatory manner in malawi based on a 2004 survey of 315 respondents 166 adopters and 149 nonadopters we test the hypothesis that adoption of iaa is associated with improved farm productivity and more efficient use of resources estimating a technical inefficiency function shows that iaa farms were significantly more efficient compared to nonadopters iaa farms also had higher total factor productivity higher farm income per hectare and higher returns to family labor

a multiplier decomposition method to analyze poverty alleviation abstract the objective of this paper is to present a multiplier decomposition method focusing on poverty alleviation the decomposition captures the various mechanisms and linkages through which a production sector s output contributes to poverty alleviation within a socioeconomic system represented by a social accounting matrix sam it is shown that a multiplier can be broken down into two multiplicative effects the distributional and interdependency effects the decomposition method is applied to the case of indonesia a key policy implication is that the human capital of the poor needs to be enhanced if they are not to be sealed off from the industrialization process

the behaviour of the innovative firm relations to the environment abstract one of the most interesting results of the ongoing theoretical debate on innovation has been to shift the focus from purely technological aspects to firms behaviour in innovative processes and at the same time to stress the specific and cumulative character which makes these processes somewhat rooted to the context in which they take place along this line in this paper we will hold that innovation is a process that should be considered as a change of the environment of the innovating firm rather than somethin occurring within this environment and more in particular as a learning process which concerns both the firm and its environment and that results in deep changes in both of them these propositions are meant not only as a dynamic methodological principle providing a framework for definition and classification but to have analytical and operational implications that is we maintain that there is a meaningful correlation between the attitude and behaviour of the firm with respect to innovation and the way in which the firm itself considers the environment and relates to it this correlation as we shall see holds with respect to several relevant issues the way of regarding upward and downward integration 1 the interpretation of flexibility the role of human resource as distinct from mere manpower management and so on

farm productivity and rural poverty in india armed with new data we return to an old question from the pages of this journal to what extent do india s rural poor share in agricultural growth combining data from 24 household sample surveys spanning 35 years with other sources we estimate a model of the joint determination of consumption poverty measures agricultural wages and food prices we find that higher farm productivity brought both absolute and relative gains to poor rural households a large share of the gains was via wages and prices though these effects took time the benefits to the poor were not confined to those near the poverty line

can high inequality developing countries escape absolute poverty do the poor face the same prospects for escaping poverty in high inequality developing countries as in low inequality countries is it possible for inequality to be so great as to stifle prospects of reducing absolute poverty even when other initial conditions and policies are favorable to growth household survey data for developing countries suggest that initial distribution does affect how much the poor share in rising average incomes higher initial inequality tends to reduce growth s impact on absolute poverty by the same token higher inequality diminishes the adverse impact on the poor of general economic contraction combining this evidence with that from recent investigations of inequality s effect on growth the author finds that if inequality is high enough countries that would have very good growth prospects at low levels of inequality may see little or no overall growth and little progress in reducing poverty or even a worsening on both counts the data the author uses suggest that such cases do occur the precision with which key parameters have been estimated makes it difficult to say with confidence how common such cases are but they appear to be in the minority what appear to be the best available estimates suggest that about one fifth of the spells between surveys he analyzed were cases in which poverty was rising yet positive growth in the mean and hence falling poverty is predicted at zero inequality inequality can be high enough to result in rising poverty despite good underlying growth prospects

r d internationalization and growth of newly listed firms european evidence the initial public offering ipo is an important stage in the life cycle of privately held and entrepreneurial firms for innovative firms eager to capitalize on their technological advances an ipo represents a springboard for a rapid international expansion of sales however there is little research on the longer term post ipo strategic evolution of newly listed companies including their internationalization we build on international entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities perspectives and examine interrelationships between r d exporting and growth of newly listed firms in the uk germany italy and france using panel data for 1110 ipos during the period 1985 2004 we found that r d intensity is an important antecedent factor for internationalization of sales both r d and export intensities have a positive effect on the sales growth of newly listed firms however r d intensity is path dependent and is determined by levels of accumulated intangible assets and debt in terms of time dynamics the growth of ipo firms is at its highest level just after the float whereas export intensity increases as ipo firms mature we conclude that managers and ipo investors need to take into account not only growth opportunities but also past innovation strategies and financial constraints on managers strategic choices

the impact of research led agricultural productivity growth on poverty reduction in africa asia and latin america abstract twenty percent of the world s population or 1 2 billion live on less than 1 per day 70 of these are rural and 90 are in asia and sub saharan africa research led technological change in agriculture generates sufficient productivity growth to give high rates of return in africa and asia and has a substantial impact on poverty currently reducing this number by 27 million per annum whereas productivity growth in industry and services has no impact the per capita cost of poverty reduction by means of agricultural research expenditures in africa is 144 and in asia 180 or 50 cents per day but this is covered by output growth by contrast the per capita cost for the richer countries of latin america is over 11 000

technological accumulation diversification and organisation in uk companies 1945 1983 a survey of more than 4 000 significant innovations and innovating firms in the uk from 1945 1983 shows that the scope and organisation of technological activities vary greatly as functions of firms principal activities and size 1 technological opportunities and threats are greatest in firms in chemicals and engineering opportunities in such science based and specialist supplier firms in general emerge horizontally in related product markets and downstream in user sectors in scale intensive e g steel vehicles and supplier dominated e g printing construction firms opportunities tend to be upstream in related production technologies breakthrough innovations in science based firms also induce clusters of technological opportunities upstream for suppliers horizontally for partners and downstream for users their effective exploitation requires diversity of firms technological activities greater than that strictly required for current output 2 the nature of technological opportunities and of organisation for their exploitation also varies with firm size firms with fewer than 1 000 employees have major opportunities with specialised strategies in mechanical engineering and instruments the prevalence of broad front technological strategies and of divisionalisation increases sharply with firm size together with dependence on formal r and d activities the size of innovating divisions has diminished sharply over the period divisionalisation improves the goodness of fit between the core business of innovating divisions and the innovations themselves but 40 have remained consistently outside the core business of divisions 3 these findings help identify the key tasks of technological strategy in firms in different industries and of different sizes thus in large firms divisionalisation can create the small size of unit conducive to effective implementation but it cannot absolve central management from the continuous task of matching technological opportunities with organisational forms and boundaries

revenue decentralization and income distribution abstract due to varying local revenue collection capacities and interest group activities revenue decentralization rd may lead to increased inequality this paper provides empirical evidence however that if coupled with good governance rd could improve income distribution

does decentralization reduce income inequality only in rich states we investigate the relationship between fiscal decentralization and income inequality using data from u s states over three and a half decades our study contributes to the literature in several ways in terms of empirical methodology and specification first we take into account integration and cointegration properties of the data and estimate the cointegratingrelationship between fiscal decentralization and income inequality using fully modified ordinary least squares following pedroni 2000 second we investigate the direction of the causality finally and perhaps most importantly we investigate if the relationship between fiscal decentralization and income inequality is conditional on income in each state we find that fiscal decentralization does reduce income inequality but only in rich states we also find that causality runs from fiscal decentralization to income inequality not the other way around

employment change in independent owner managed high technology firms in great britain there is a growing volume of literature that points to the potential for small technology based firms to achieve substantial employment growth as a direct consequence of such work this sector of any economy has attracted increasing attention from national and local governments concerned with finding ways of revitalising economically deprived localities and creating employment opportunities this paper provides up to date empirical evidence surrounding the ability of small high technology firms to create additional jobs in great britain in addition key founder and business characteristics are isolated which are significantly associated with employment change in growing high technology firms over the 1986 to 1992 period with respect to factors influencing these high levels of employment growth a high firm size in 1986 was found to act positively on employment growth as was a graduate level education for the key founder on the finance side firms which had access to and used a multiplicity of sources of start up finance tended to grow faster futher on the basis of our results we would suggest and recommend a government policy which at the firm level actively encourages high technology firm start ups who record higher rates of survival than firms in more conventional sectors as well as providing support for existing high technology firms who have already demonstrated the inclination and ability to grow in employment size

fiscal decentralization central bank independence and inflation abstract we develop earlier cross sectional studies of inflation rates by adding the degree of tax centralization as another explanatory variable this makes central bank independence perform appreciably better as an explanatory variable also we find that centralized countries have higher inflation

sectoral patterns of technical change towards a taxonomy and a theory abstract the purpose of the paper is to describe and explain sectoral patterns of technical change as revealed by data on about 2000 significant innovations in britain since 1945 most technological knowledge turns out not to be information that is generally applicable and easily reproducible but specific to firms and applications cumulative in development and varied amongst sectors in source and direction innovating firms principally in electronics and chemicals are relatively big and they develop innovations over a wide range of specific product groups within their principal sector but relatively few outside firms principally in mechanical and instrument engineering are relatively small and specialised and they exist in symbiosis with large firms in scale intensive sectors like metal manufacture and vehicles who make a significant contribution to their own process technology in textile firms on the other hand most process innovations come from suppliers these characteristics and variations can be classified in a three part taxonomy based on firms 1 supplier dominated 2 production intensive 3 science based they can be explained by sources of technology requirements of users and possibilities for appropriation this explanation has implications for our understanding of the sources and directions of technical change firms diversification behaviour the dynamic relationship between technology and industrial structure and the formation of technological skills and advantages at the level of the firm the region and the country

university spin out companies and venture capital abstract the creation of university spin out companies that create wealth is a major policy objective of governments and universities finance is a catalyst of this wealth creation yet access to venture capital is a major impediment faced by these companies in this article we adopt a finance pecking order perspective to examine the problems faced by those university spin out companies seeking to access venture capital we triangulate evidence from spin out companies university technology transfer offices and venture capital firms in the uk and continental europe to identify the problems and to suggest policy developments for these parties as well as government we compare perceptions of high tech venture capital firms that invest in spin outs with those that do not and also consider vcs views on spin outs versus other high tech firms our evidence identifies a mismatch between the demand and supply side of the market in line with the pecking order theory venture capitalists prefer to invest after the seed stage however in contrast to the pecking order theory ttos see venture capital as more important than internal funds early on we develop policy implications for universities technology transfer offices academic entrepreneurs venture capital firms and government and suggest areas for further research

policies for agricultural productivity growth and poverty reduction in rural ethiopia summary increasing the productivity of smallholder agriculture holds the key to poverty reduction the empirical literature is limited to ascertain the linkages and the implications for policy uptake in ethiopia we examine the impact of growth in agricultural productivity on household poverty dynamics in rural ethiopia using a panel dataset 1994 2009 findings suggest that government policies aimed at reducing poverty should adopt a growth plus approach designing policy interventions to support agricultural productivity growth plus to protect assets and enhance market access for rural households in the country

multi factor agricultural productivity efficiency and convergence in botswana 1981 1996 abstract this paper applies the sequential malmquist index to calculate multi lateral multi factor productivity mfp indices for agriculture in the 18 districts and the commercial sector of botswana from 1981 to 1996 the mfp index grew at an average rate of 1 7 per annum led by the regions that specialize in livestock which grew at well over 3 per annum this growth was powered by technological change at 4 per year but offset by technical efficiency falling at 2 4 per annum as the commercial sector and the better regions exploited new technologies and infrastructure whereas the less productive areas fell further behind the best practice frontier thus convergence tests show that the gap between the more productive and the poorer regions widened

peanut research and poverty reduction impacts of variety improvement to control peanut viruses in uganda a procedure is developed and applied for predicting ex ante impacts of agricultural research on aggregate poverty using as an example the poverty reducing impact of peanut research in uganda market level information on economic surplus changes is combined with a procedure for allocating income changes to individual households characteristics of farmers that affect their likelihood of technology adoption are used to create a technology adoption profile associated changes in poverty resulting from adoption are computed using poverty indices predicted income changes at the household level are aggregated to the market level and reconciled with calculations of economic surplus changes

new firms and rural industrialization in east anglia gould a and keeble d 1984 new firms and rural industrialization in east anglia reg studies 18 189 201 the paper analyses key aspects of the formation of new independent manufacturing firms in east anglia between 1971 and 1981 special attention is paid to trends in formation rates over time to the spatial bias of new firm origins towards both rural areas and the cambridge region and to the location character and impact of high technology new firms original findings include the contention that spatial variations chiefly reflect variation in the occupational structure of the resident workforce together with industrial mix plant size and previous industrial immigration some implications for government policy to new firms are discussed

poverty alleviation in federal systems the case of mexico the function of poverty relief has been the subject of debate in terms of the tier of government that should perform it on the one hand some of the literature in the economics and political science fields argues that this function should be federal because of factor mobility on the other hand because of the distance factor which makes citizens more sensitive to poverty others argue that it should a subnational responsibility finally others in both fields argue that it is more accurate to view the recent trends witnessed in developing countries as delegation of service delivery by the central government to different sets of agents the fact is that the different levels of government across countries intervene in this government obligation this paper employs the case of mexico to test the different implications of the theories this country is studied because it decentralized this activity in 1998 and thus it is subject to evaluation the results suggest that decentralizing the poverty relief function has not delivered results thus they suggest that this task should be a national one however the reason for this is the lack of political accountability at the subnational level and not mobility that is when accountability is introduced a subnational government may in fact perform well

agricultural growth poverty and nutrition in tanzania abstract rapid economic growth does not appear to have significantly improved poverty and nutrition outcomes in tanzania we link recent production trends to household incomes using a regionalized recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium and microsimulation model results indicate some inconsistency between recent growth and poverty measurements in tanzania we also find that the structure of economic growth may have constrained the rate of poverty reduction agricultural growth has been driven by larger scale farmers who are less likely to be poor and has been concentrated among crops grown in specific regions of the country slow expansion of food crops and livestock also explain the weak relationship between agricultural growth and nutrition outcomes we find that accelerating agricultural growth particularly in maize strengthens the growth poverty relationship and enhances households caloric availability while also contributing significantly to growth itself

fiscal decentralization central bank independence and inflation a panel investigation we reinvestigate the relationship between revenue decentralization rd central bank independence cbi and inflation by modifying the paper by eco 72 2001 95 we show that in contrast to the earlier findings rd has a negative impact on inflation if accompanied by both cbi and local accountability in low inflation countries however rd has a negative impact on inflation even without these additional factors though cbi accentuates this effect

the economic and poverty impacts of maize research in west and central africa this article assembles the results of three multicountry surveys on variety performance and adoption patterns to measure the impacts of maize research in west and central africa from 1981 to 2005 and uses cost data since 1971 to compute social rates of return on public investments in maize research in the region adoption of modern varieties increased from less than 5 of the maize area in the 1970s to about 60 in 2005 yielding an aggregate rate of return on research and development r d investment of 43 the estimated number of people moved out of poverty through adoption of new maize varieties rose gradually in the 1980s to more than one million people per year since the mid 1990s over half of these impacts can be attributed to international maize research at iita and cimmyt the article concludes with a discussion of strategic options to enhance the impacts of maize research in the region

a new data set measuring income inequality this article presents a new data set on inequality in the distribution of income the authors explain the criteria they applied in selecting data on gini coefficients and on individual quintile groups income shares comparison of the new data set with existing compilations reveals that the data assembled here represent an improvement in quality and a significant expansion in coverage although differences in the definition of the underlying data might still affect inter temporal and international comparability based on this new data set the authors do not find a systematic link between growth and changes in aggregate inequality they do find a strong positive relationship between growth and reduction of poverty

how does fiscal decentralization affect aggregate national and subnational government size abstract beyond conducting the usual regression analysis of the relationship between fiscal decentralization and aggregate government size national and subnational combined this paper makes the first attempt to examine how different fiscal decentralization measures affect the sizes of national and subnational state and local combined governments an econometric analysis using panel data from 32 industrial and developing countries 1980 1994 finds that 1 expenditure decentralization leads to smaller national governments larger subnational governments and larger aggregate governments 2 revenue decentralization increases subnational governments by less than it reduces national governments hence leads to smaller aggregate governments and 3 vertical imbalance tends to increase the sizes of subnational national and aggregate governments

predictors of success in new technology based ventures abstract several recent studies have examined the causes of success and failure in new ventures from these a three level analysis has evolved which considers the management the venture s strategy and its competitive environment empirical testing is still at an early stage but results have generally supported the three level approach however the findings are not very strong this study considers only high potential technology based new ventures the companies on which venture capitalists concentrate it suggests that such firms face unusual time pressures and uncertainty and that their responses to these forces are major determinants of success or failure we propose 11 easily measured qualities describing management the firm s strategy and its environment which should influence how quickly the venture can act these should predict a new venture s performance the 11 attributes are tested on 36 new ventures representing essentially all of the startup investments of a major venture capital firm between 1974 and 1982 the data are taken from the firms original business plans performance is measured from the subsequent financial history using the compound rate of return to all shareholders founders employees and investors the ventures in this sample are primarily based on electronic or information technologies they are highly successful as a group with an average compound rate of return of 98 per year they are also very risky the standard deviation of returns is 171 per year and in 11 of 36 cases the shareholders lost on their investments results from a single sample must always be treated cautiously however several findings are strong enough to merit further study and to be incorporated as a part of a process for evaluating new ventures 1 1 a set of four measures representing all three areas explains 57 of the variance the four completeness of the founding team technical superiority of the product expected time for product development and buyer concentration all behave as expected the first two have a positive effect the latter two have an inverted u shaped relationship with an optimum development time of 12 months and an optimum number of customers of approximately 60 three other measures prior shared experience of the founders competitive conditions and projected market share show an influence when management strategy and environment are examined one area at a time 2 2 these relatively simple measures predict success well probably at least as well as any other study has done using more subtle measures 3 3 the measures used in this study though they have strong predictive power apparently did not influence the young capitalists otherwise the relationships should have been different when the return to venture capital investors was used in place of the total return in fact they were the same this suggests that the venture capital investors did not give sufficient weight to the qualities that we consider and could make better choices by giving greater attention to those measures 4 4 prospective entrepreneurs and investors should benefit from using our model aspart of their screening processes specifically they might calculate a predicted rate of return if it is low say below 30 per year they should examine the reason for the low score and consider whether circumstances exist which outweigh or invalidate that apparent weakness 5 5 an additive model seems realistic that is one can combine dissimilar qualities with appropriate weighting for relative importance to arrive at an overall figure of merit with strong predictive power the specific parameters imply that a company must have a complete management team and score well on two of the remaining three measures in order to be an attractive opportunity more generally the model allows a practitioner to make a rough assessment of the tradeoffs among management product and industry this is important because few if any new companies have all the qualities an investor may desire 6 6 although individual qualities of the founders are no doubt important this remains a difficult matter to demonstrate statistically 7 7 firms exist in an ever changing competitive environment to the extent that these findings are valid beyond this sample they may have been recognized and incorporated in more recent new ventures if so this may change the nature of competition and alter the key determinants of success or failure

sri lanka s rural non farm economy removing constraints to pro poor growth summary we use a survey of rural enterprises from sri lanka to explore characteristics of the informal non farm sector and identify obstacles to its expansion and productivity value added in this sector amounts to 80 of agricultural gdp participating households incomes are significantly higher than those of households who do not participate barriers to entry are low and the impact of non farm development on inequality modest implying a large potential contribution to growth and poverty reduction infrastructure constraints negatively affect new startups investment in and productivity of existing enterprises with small enterprises being particularly affected

growth inequality and poverty looking beyond averages the evidence is compelling that the poor in developing countries do typically share in the gains from rising aggregate affluence and in the losses from aggregate contraction but how much do poor people share in growth do they gain more in some settings than others do some gain while others lose does pro poor growth mean more or less aggregate growth recent theories and evidence suggest some answers but deeper microeconomic empirical work is needed on growth and distributed change only then will we have a firm basis for identifying the specific policies and programs needed to complement and possibly modify growth oriented policies

toward a food secure future ensuring food security for sustainable human development in sub saharan africa food security remains a top development priority and global concern it is enshrined in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development in sustainable development goal two food security is also a core component of the human development and capability paradigm since food access and entitlements are critical for reinforcing essential human capabilities in introducing this special issue this paper argues that agriculture is central to improving food security and reducing poverty in africa it suggests that realizing the potential of agriculture in africa requires rapid increases in land productivity and increases in agricultural yields a science based approach that integrates gender and sustainability is critical to meet this goal through the design and implementation of policies that improve the availability farm inputs and farm technology the paper concludes by introducing the papers in this special issue

national policies and the sectoral pattern of economic growth this article presents tests of whether the kinds of national policy variables used to explain cross country variation in the growth of aggregate gdp per capita can also successfully explain per capita growth in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of developing countries there are four main results of interest first relative to nonagriculture convergence is much slower in agriculture and the burden of population growth is generally much higher second while orthodox economic policies share positive associations with economic growth in the nonagricultural sectors of developing countries such policies fail to robustly predict variation in agricultural growth third size of government indicators often yield an unexpected positive association with agricultural growth and finally although there is some evidence that fewer price controls are associated with faster agricultural growth these associations are statistically quite weak and quantitatively quite small

is agriculture the engine of growth we seek to address formally the question raised by gardner 2003 in his elmhirst lecture as to the direction of causality between agricultural value added per worker and gross domestic product gdp per capita using the granger causality test in the panel data analyzed by gardner for 85 countries we find overwhelming evidence that supports the conclusion that agricultural value added is the causal variable in developing countries while the direction of causality in developed countries is unclear we also examine further the use of the granger causality test in integrated data and provide evidence that the performance of the test can be increased in small samples through the use of the bootstrap

impact of tissue culture banana technology on farm household income and food security in kenya while tissue culture tc technology for vegetative plant propagation is gradually gaining in importance in africa rigorous assessment of broader welfare effects for adopting smallholder farm households is lacking using survey data and accounting for selection bias in technology adoption we analyze the impact of tc banana technology on household income and food security in kenya to assess food security outcomes we employ the household food insecurity access scale hfias a tool that has not been used for impact assessment before estimates of treatment effects models show that tc banana adoption combined with improved crop management causes considerable increases in farm and household income technology adoption also reduces relative food insecurity in a significant way these results indicate that tc technology can be welfare enhancing for adopting farm households adoption should be further promoted through upscaling appropriate technology delivery systems

systems of innovation theory and the changing architecture of agricultural research in africa abstract this paper examines the on going evolution of the organisational architecture of agricultural research in africa once considered a rural backwater populated by agronomists extension agents and farmers agricultural research is now being explicitly placed within global debates about innovation technology institutions and development this is reflected in a growing interest in the use of systems of innovation theory to both understand and reform innovation processes within agriculture the basic argument put forward in the paper is that the conception of a global agricultural research system and associated efforts to create a coordinated multi layered supra national research infrastructure are at odds with both the realities of research at national level and the bio physical and socio economic heterogeneity that characterises rural africa it is suggested that a less directive approach to support for agricultural research is required to allow national characteristics and differences to come to the fore and to give more room for the development of the all important demand side

rural poverty in latin america determinants and exit paths abstract while rural poverty in latin america has declined over the last three decades success has been uneven across countries and rural poverty remains huge reduction in the number of rural relative to urban poor has been mainly the outcome of migration not of successful rural development we show that rural incomes are explained by the asset position of households and the characteristics of the context where assets are used given heterogeneity in asset positions and contexts many strategies to escape poverty consequently exist we identify four paths out of poverty exit agricultural pluriactive and assistance successful rural development to promote the agricultural and pluriactive paths requires a wholesale new approach based on regional development decentralization and participation agricultural technology has a role to play in these two strategies in latin america however the bulk of the benefits from technological change has been captured through indirect effects via the price of food employment creation and contributions to aggregate growth

conceptualising the heterogeneity of research based spin offs a multi dimensional taxonomy abstract research based spin offs rbsos have become an important aspect of the technology transfer process emanating from what is conventionally a non commercial environment rbsos pose major challenges if they are to realise their potential to meet the objectives of their founders and the parent research organisations pros from which they emerge an important issue is to understand the heterogeneity of rbsos this paper reviews the literature on rbso typologies to develop a taxonomy of rbsos we identify common themes in relation to these typologies in relation to 1 spin off creation and 2 spin off development the dimensions that differentiate between firms are the type of resources the business model and the institutional link we identify gaps in current typologies in order to propose avenues for future conceptual and empirical research

cross country disparity in agricultural productivity quantifying the role of modern seed adoption inequality of agricultural labour productivity across the developing world has increased substantially over the past 40 years this article asks to what extent did the diffusion of green revolution seed varieties contribute to increasing agricultural labour productivity disparity across the developing countries we find that 22 per cent of cross country variation in agricultural labour productivity can be attributed to the diffusion of high yielding seed varieties across countries and that the impact of such diffusion differed significantly across regions we discuss the implications of these findings for policy directed at increasing agricultural labour productivity in the developing world

agricultural technology adoption and household welfare measurement and evidence abstract previous studies on the adoption and impacts of improved crop varieties have relied on self reported adoption status of the surveyed households however in the presence of weak variety maintenance and poorly functioning seed certification system measurement errors in self reported adoption status can be considerable this paper investigates how such measurement errors can lead to biased welfare estimates using dna fingerprinting based varietal identification as a benchmark we find that misclassification in self reported adoption status is considerable with significant false negative and positive response rates we empirically show that such measurement errors lead to welfare estimates that are biased towards zero and substantially understate the poverty reduction effects of adoption while the empirical evidence suggests attenuation bias our theoretical exposition and simulations demonstrate that upward bias and sign reversal effects are also possible the results point to the need for improved monitoring of the diffusion process of improved varieties through innovative adoption data collection approaches to generate robust evidence for prioritizing and justifying investments in agricultural research and extension

new technology based firms in innovation networks symplectic and generative impacts abstract the traditional body of research on new technology based firms reflects the linear sequential view of the technological innovation process the modern innovation theory views the innovation process as a complex interative process that is essentially systemic in character the systemic view of the technological innovation process largely remains to be implemented in research on new technology based firms the present study represents an attempt to bridge this gap by applying a systemic approach to research on new technology based firms the empirical part of the present study develops and empirically tests a model that classifies new technology based firms into science based firms and engineering based firms the two categories are defined in terms of the functional relationship between the new technology based firm and the articulation process of basic technologies in the model new technology based firms are analyzed in terms of the systemic knowledge conversion process to which they are attached the model receives support in three empirical databases compiled among new technology based firms in finland the united kingdom and silicon valley the analysis of the silicon valley database is the first ever systematic survey of the spin off firms of stanford university

the impact of agricultural research on productivity and poverty in sub saharan africa while it is widely recognized that agricultural research is a key driver of broad based technological change in agriculture that benefits the poor in many different ways little is known about its aggregate impacts on productivity growth and poverty reduction in sub saharan africa ssa using a polynomial distributed lag structure for agricultural research within a simultaneous system of equations framework this paper first demonstrates that agricultural research contributes significantly to productivity growth in ssa productivity growth is again shown to raise per capita incomes with income increases finally having significant poverty reducing effects with an aggregate rate of return of 55 the payoffs to agricultural research are also impressive agricultural research currently reduces the number of poor by 2 3 million or 0 8 annually while the actual impacts are not large enough to more than offset the poverty increasing effects of population growth and environmental degradation the potential impacts of agricultural research are far greater apart from low research investments ssa faces several constraints outside the research system that hinder realization of potential research benefits the results show that doubling research investments in ssa would reduce poverty by 9 annually however this would not be realized without more efficient extension credit and input supply systems

the rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the united kingdom a causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion this paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the plant breeding institute pbi which was the most successful public plant breeding institute in the uk until privatization in 1987 the pbi s shares in barley and wheat seed sales are explained showing that the success with barley was largely a matter of serendipity whereas the wheat programme followed a more normal pattern for wheat the causal chain or recursive model decomposes the well documented link between research expenditures and increases in agricultural productivity into three stages these are the effects of r d expenditures on basic research output measured by publications the effect of publications and applied r d expenditures on trial plot yields and the diffusion of the trial plot technologies which raises yields on farms applying the model to the pbi s wheat varieties allows estimation of the lag structures in contrast to the results for aggregate agricultural research for a single plant breeding programme alone there is a considerable lead time before there is any response followed by a lag distribution only a few years long the returns to the r d investments are calculated from the causal chain model from single equation estimates and by evaluating the yield advantage of the pbi varieties all three approaches give consistent results which show that the returns to barley and wheat alone were sufficient to support the entire pbi budget and still give rates of return to applied research of between 14 and 25 the return to the basic science expenditures of the john innes institute has a lower bound of 17 but must have been even higher than for the pbi if the other institutes were taken into account the paper concludes by commenting on the effects of the privatization of the pbi

economists perceptions versus managers decisions an experiment in transaction cost analysis are the perceptions of professional economists on transaction costs consistent with make or buy decisions made within firms the answer may have important implications for transaction cost research data on firms outsourcing during the new product development process are taken from a largescale survey of uk german and irish manufacturing plants and we test the consistency of these outsourcing decisions with the predictions derived from the transaction cost perceptions of a panel of economists little consistency is evident between actual outsourcing patterns and the predictions of the williamsonian transactions cost model derived from the panel of economists there is however evidence of a systematic pattern to the differences suggesting that a competence or resource based approach may be relevant to understanding firm outsourcing and that firms are adopting a strategic approach to managing their external relationships cambridge political economy society 2005 all rights reserved

an economic evaluation of spread on rwanda s rural population abstractsustainable partnerships to enhance rural enterprises and agricultural development spread was a programme to enhance the value chain for commodities in rwanda including coffee the implicit concept was that improving the value chain would increase the incomes for smallholders and hence reduce the poverty rate the results indicate that rwanda coffee prices increased relative to an index price for traded coffee with the implementation of spread in addition the results indicate that participation in the coffee market at this time was associated with higher household income and lower rates of poverty

the roles of science in technological innovation abstract one of the central issues in science policy during the past decade has been the extent to which the national levels of expenditure on scientific education and research influence the standard of living this paper provides empirical evidence to show that the pay off from this investment in science is more complex and indirect than previously supposed

electoral systems and income inequality abstract the goal of this paper is to determine if electoral systems and inequality are linked using high quality data lis database and simple panel methods we show that when the degree of proportionality of a system increases inequality decreases

networks and innovation in a modular system lessons from the microcomputer and stereo component industries in this paper we examine theoretically and through case studies the phenomenon of the modular system which we distinguish from a product conceived of as a prepackaged entity or appliance we argue that such systems offer benefits on both the demand side and the supply side supply side benefits include the potential for autonomous innovation which is driven by the division of labor and provides the opportunity for rapid trial and error learning demand side benefits include the ability to fine tune the product to consumer needs and therefore blanket the product space more completely both of our case studies suggest that innovation in a modular system can lead to vertical and horizontal disintegration as firms can often best appropriate the rents of innovation by opening their technology to an outside network of competing and cooperating firms we conclude by speculating on the increased importance of modular systems in the future since flexible manufacturing and rising incomes are likely to increase the driving requisites of modular systems low economies of scale in assembly and sophisticated consumer tastes

economic development and the role of agricultural technology in earlier debates on economic development the agricultural sector s role was somewhat controversial while dualistic models highlighted the importance of agriculture the mainstream literature placed a greater emphasis on the creation of a modern industrial sector soon agriculture disappeared from the mainstream development literature to re emerge recently with a variety of multiple sector growth models emphasizing the key role of agriculture and specifically technology in agriculture this article is an empirical cross country analysis of agricultural technology s role in economic development specifically the hypothesis being tested is whether improvements in agricultural technology have a significant impact on long run economic growth the results indicate that agricultural modernization has a positive effect on both measures of economic growth and human development

when the data source writes the conclusion evaluating agricultural policies statistics describe realities but they also shape them since they are used to design or support policies as such accurate statistics are important using the agricultural sector in rwanda as a case study we demonstrate that dubious statistics can spread quickly according to data from the food and agricultural organization fao yields have increased by 60 per cent since the implementation of large scale agricultural reforms while other datasets point towards more modest gains yet estimates in line with those of the fao dominate the official discourse we suggest that the discrepancies between datasets may be explained by the difficulties of collecting accurate agricultural statistics combined with an incentive to overestimate yields to show that the reforms have worked

asset profiles for technological innovation abstract this paper proposes a conceptual distinction between four generic categories of assets for technological innovation 1 scientific research assets 2 process innovative assets 3 product innovative application assets and 4 aesthetic design assets technological innovation may sometimes require the activation of only one asset type but more often a specific constellation of more asset types has to be mobilized the asset categories differ profoundly with respect not only to their respective competence bases but also with respect to their functional contribution to industrial innovation and mostly also to their organizational attachment this way of conceiving technological innovation is opposed to the one dimensional r d conception that tends to view r d as one functional asset along with others like manufacturing or marketing it is argued that the different innovative assets are often located in different organizational settings within the corporation the coupling between assets is discussed in terms of inter asset specificity we illustrate the great variation of innovative asset profiles across a wide spectrum of product categories the concept of technological trajectories is reinterpreted in terms of asset profile oscillations and regroupings finally the framework is related to recent efforts to formulate a resource based theory of the firm and the implications for innovation strategy is discussed

is your firm a creative destroyer competitive learning and knowledge flows in the technological strategies of firms abstract a firm s technology strategy can be described either as a war of position or a war of movement the first kind of strategy leads the firm to hoard its technological assets in an attempt to defy the equilibrating action of market forces neoclassical or n learning the second pushes for a selective diffusion of its technological assets that will move it beyond market equilibrium and towards new opportunities schumpeterian or s learning using boisot s 1986 culture space as an analytical tool the paper explores the difference between n and s learning and how they each affect a firm s technological prospects

beyond agriculture versus non agriculture decomposing sectoral growth poverty linkages in five african countries summary africa s development debate is often cast as agriculture versus non agriculture with agriculture s proponents arguing that agricultural growth is more effective at reducing poverty this dual economy perspective overlooks the heterogeneity within and synergies between these two broad sectors recent studies decompose agriculture into subsectors and find that agricultural growth led by smallholder farmers is even more effective at reducing poverty than larger scale estate farms in contrast few studies estimate subsectoral growth poverty linkages for non agriculture yet we strongly expect for example that growth led by informal traders or foreign owned mining companies will have quite different implications for poverty reduction different perspectives on what constitutes non agriculture might therefore explain divergent views on its relative importance for poverty reduction to address this gap in our understanding we estimate sectoral poverty growth elasticities using economy wide models for five african countries while our estimated elasticities are higher for agriculture than for non agriculture as a whole the extent to which this is true varies considerably across nonagricultural subsectors and across countries we find that the poverty growth elasticities for trade and transport services and manufacturing especially agro processing are often close to and sometimes exceed agriculture s this means that growth led by these nonagricultural subsectors might be as effective as agriculture at reaching the poor this confirms the need for a more nuanced treatment of non agriculture in africa s policy debate and may explain conflicting perspectives on agriculture s role vis a vis non agriculture