indirect effects of an aid program how do cash transfers affect ineligibles consumption cash transfers to eligible households indirectly increase the consumption of ineligible households living in the same villages this effect operates through insurance and credit markets ineligible households benefit from the transfers by receiving more gifts and loans and by reducing their savings thus the transfers benefit the local economy at large looking only at the effect on the treated underestimates the impact one should analyze the effects of this class of programs on the entire local economy rather than on the treated only and use a village level randomization rather than selecting treatment and control subjects from the same community

economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries this study provides an introduction to this special issue of the journal of development studies on economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries in addition to providing a conceptual framework it outlines how the contributions fit into the extant literature a series of regularities emerge across these studies the poor consist of those who are always poor poor at all dates and those who move in and out of poverty with the latter group tending to be strikingly large such movements in and out of poverty are apparent when looking at poverty in either absolute or relative terms changes in returns to endowments can be a potent source of increased incomes finally seemingly transitory shocks can have long term consequences the study concludes by drawing out the policy implications of these regularities

the economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty an asset based approach abstract longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the nature and extent of poverty while a number of studies have exploited this type of data to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty this paper develops an asset based approach to poverty analysis that makes it possible to distinguish deep rooted persistent structural poverty from poverty that passes naturally with time due to systemic growth processes drawing on the economic theory of poverty traps and bifurcated accumulation strategies this paper briefly discusses some feasible estimation strategies for empirically identifying poverty traps and long term persistent structural poverty as well as relevant extensions of the popular foster greer thorbecke class of poverty measures the paper closes with reflections on how asset based poverty can be used to underwrite the design of persistent poverty reduction strategies

poverty persistence and transitions in uganda a combined qualitative and quantitative analysis despite uganda s impressive reduction in income poverty during the 1990s recent evidence has shown there to be substantial mobility into and out of poverty this paper represents one of the first attempts to combine qualitative and quantitative information to understand the factors and processes underlying poverty transitions and persistence in some instances similar factors are identified by both qualitative and quantitative approaches including lack of key physical assets high dependency ratios and increased household size in other instances though one approach identifies additional factors not so easily identified by the other for example the impacts of excessive alcohol consumption in many cases the paper argues that there is considerable value added in combining the two approaches allowing us to provide a much richer understanding of many of the processes underlying poverty and poverty transitions

measuring poverty using qualitative perceptions of consumption adequacy we show that subjective poverty lines can be derived using simple qualitative assessments of perceived consumption adequacy based on a household survey we implement the method using survey data for jamaica and nepal respondents were asked whether their consumptions of food housing and clothing were adequate for their family s needs the implied poverty lines are robust to alternative methods of dealing with other components of expenditure the aggregate poverty rates accord quite closely with those based on independent objective poverty lines however there are notable differences in the geographic and demographic poverty profiles

poverty time and vagueness integrating the core poverty and chronic poverty frameworks in recent decades there have been considerable steps forward in terms of understanding poverty this paper identifies three meta dimensions of poverty which relate to i depth and severity ii breadth and multidimensionality and iii time and duration the advances that have been made in terms of conceptualising measuring and analysing poverty in each of these areas are briefly considered it is shown that the third and final meta dimension time and duration has been neglected until relatively recently it is argued that time and in particular duration is an important analytical component for understanding the experience of poverty and the processes that create and reduce poverty the final part of the paper suggests a way of integrating time into a unified framework for understanding poverty which can deal with the depth breadth and duration of poverty this involves extending mozaffar qizilbash s poverty and vagueness methodology to include duration

the benefits and costs of strong patent protection a contribution to the current debate abstract today s conventional wisdom is that strong patent rights are conducive to economic progress yet not long ago students of the patent system took a more nuanced position arguing that often strong patents were not necessary to induce invention and entailed significant economic costs several empirical studies have supported this position however the current advocacy invokes theories of the positive benefits of patents that were repressed in the earlier more negative analyses this essay reviews these theories and the empirical evidence that might bear on them the authors conclude that there is reason for concern that the present movement towards stronger patent protection may hinder rather than stimulate technological and economic progress

poverty alleviation as an economic problem economists distinguish between technological problems in which variable means confront a given end and economic problems in which given means are allocated across competing ends james buchanan and f a hayek each offer constructive criticisms of the standard definition of an economic problem arguing that economists too easily slide into mechanistic and teleological thinking building on these accounts we argue that there are three key dimensions to the economic problem exchange coordination and governance we then make a case that poverty alleviation is more like an economic problem than a technological one an economic problem with a small e we survey empirical evidence from economics anthropology and sociology indicating that poverty is not a simple lack of objectively identifiable resources but rather a multidimensional and socially embedded phenomenon understanding what poverty alleviation would even look like requires thinking through problems of exchange coordination and governance

academic research and industrial innovation the purpose of this study is to estimate the extent to which technological innovations in various industries have been based on recent academic research and the time lags between the investment in recent academic research projects and the industrial utilization of their findings because no attempt to my knowledge has been made to estimate the social rate of return from academic research we also make some rough and tentative estimates of this sort while the results are subject to many limitations discussed below they should be of interest to public policy makers concerned with science and technology as well as to

female labour supply and on the job search an empirical model estimated using complementary data sets we develop an empirical model of labour supply that is consistent with on the job search and which is identified and estimated by combining two data sets the u k family expenditure survey which contains information on income and expenditure and the u k labour force survey which has data on hours and job search behaviour we provide statistical evidence on the compatibility of the two samples for the purposes of estimating our model we find that search has a direct negative effect on hours of work and we establish a strong positive effect of wages on hours

a life cycle consistent empirical model of family labour supply using cross section data this paper estimates a utility maximising model of the joint determination of male and female labour supplies using a sample of married couples from the u k family expenditure survey the emphasis is on the estimation of within period preferences that are consistent with intertemporal two stage budgeting under uncertainty however the approach we adopt provides an alternative method of estimating certain aspects of life cycle behaviour to the fixed effects constant approach of heckman and macurdy 1980 macurdy 1981 and browning deaton and irish 1985 moreover it relaxes some of the underlying restrictions that are implicit in these constant models under uncertainty

intertemporal nonseparability or borrowing restrictions a disaggregate analysis using a u s consumption panel we propose a method to test for liquidity constraints which relies on using the within period marginal rate of substitution condition as a benchmark to evaluate the intertemporal euler equation if spot markets for nondurable goods exist but financial markets either do not exist or are imperfect we show how the comparison of first order conditions involving the relevant spot and intertemporal prices can be used to detect the imperfection we apply our methodology to a large sample of u s households drawn from twelve years of the consumer expenditure survey allowing for a general nonseparable preference structure our estimates of first order conditions do not indicate the presence of liquidity constraints with the possible exception of young households

patenting and licensing university inventions lessons from the history of the research corporation recent developments in the relationships between r d in us industry and research in us universities especially in the growth of university patenting and licensing of technologies to private firms have attracted considerable attention this paper discusses the history of an important institution in the history of these relationships the research corporation the ultimate withdrawal of the research corporation from its major role reflected shifting federal policies towards philanthropic organizations as well as the bayh dole act the evidence provided in this paper however suggests that the seeds of decline had been planted well before 1980 and were apparent in the growing deficits of the research corporation during the 1970s since some of these factors are also apparent within many us university licensing offices it is likely that some shake out will occur in the future as a number of these universities reduce or terminate their activities in this area those that survive are likely to pursue a broader set of goals than royalty income alone copyright 2001 by oxford university press

health nutrition and economic development the relationship between health and economic development is explored focusing on nutrition based health indicators the spotlight is placed on the inter related feedbacks between the influence of health on productivity on one hand and the influence of income on health status on the other disentangling causality in these relationships has preoccupied much of the literature we evaluate different empirical strategies that have been adopted and assess the results there is now a body of evidence based on careful empirical studies that demonstrates a causal relationship between health and labor productivity there is also evidence that at least among the very poor additional income is spent on improved nutrition there are two issues that have received little attention although we argue they are likely to be very important first measurement of health is discussed in detail evidence is presented on how taking into account differences in the extent of measurement error is critical for interpreting the impact of health on wages the same theme emerges in studies of the effect of income on health specifically calorie intake the key role of non linearities in these relationships is highlighted and we demonstrate that a good deal of the variation in estimates of income elasticities of demand for calories can be ascribed to the role of measurement and functional form authors

on limiting or encouraging rivalry in technical progress the effect of patent scope decisions abstract this essay is on the effects of the scope of a patent e g how broad its allowed claims on subsequent inventing in a field it is argued that this depends on the topography of technical advance in a field in particular on how inventions are linked to each other and in the extent to which rapid technical advance requires a diversity of actors and minds as contrasted with being facilitated by express coordination of inventive activity technical advance is examined in several different fields with a focus on how patents influenced the pace and quality of development the authors conclude that allowing and enforcing broad patent claims tends to hinder technical progress

disability insurance and the dynamics of the incentive insurance trade off we provide a life cycle framework for comparing insurance and disincentive effects of disability benefits the risks that individuals face and the parameters of the disability insurance di program are estimated from consumption health disability insurance and wage data we characterize the effects of disability insurance and study how policy reforms impact behavior and welfare di features high rejection rates of disabled applicants and some acceptance of healthy applicants despite worse incentives welfare increases as programs become less strict or generosity increases disability insurance interacts with welfare programs making unconditional means tested programs more generous improves disability insurance targeting and increases welfare

the patent paradox revisited an empirical study of patenting in the u s semiconductor industry 1979 1995 we examine the patenting behavior of firms in an industry characterized by rapid technological change and cumulative innovation recent survey evidence suggests that semiconductor firms do not rely heavily on patents to appropriate returns to r d yet the propensity of semiconductor firms to patent has risen dramatically since the mid1980s we explore this apparent paradox by conducting interviews with industry representatives and analyzing the patenting behavior of 95 u s semiconductor firms during 1979 1995 the results suggest that the 1980s strengthening of u s patent rights spawned patent portfolio races among capital intensive firms but it also facilitated entry by specialized design firms

the use of structural models in econometrics costas meghir has been supported by the cowles foundation and the institution for social and policy studies isps at yale university

institutional determinants of university spin off quantity and quality a longitudinal multilevel cross country study the creation of spin off firms from universities is seen as an important mechanism for the commercialization of research and hence the overall contribution from universities to technological development and economic growth governments and universities are seeking to develop framework conditions that are conductive to spin off creation the most prevalent of such initiatives are legislative changes at national level and the establishment of technology transfer offices at university level the effectiveness of such initiatives is debated but empirical evidence is limited in this paper we analyze the full population of universities in italy norway and the uk three countries adopting differing approaches to framework conditions to test whether national and university level initiatives have an influence on the number of spin offs created and the quality of these spin offs building on institutional theory and using multilevel analysis we find that changes in the institutional framework conditions at both national and university levels are conductive to the creation of more spin offs but that the increase in quantity is at the expense of the quality of these firms hence the effect of such top down changes in framework conditions on the economic impact from universities seems to be more symbolic than substantive

university patenting and its effects on academic research the emerging european evidence this paper surveys the existing fragmentary data on the growth of university owned patents and university invented patents in europe we find evidence that university patenting is growing but this phenomenon remains heterogeneous across countries and disciplines we found some evidence that university licensing is not profitable for most universities although some do succeed in attracting substantial additional revenues this might be due to the fact that patents and publications tend to go hand in hand in a dynamic setting however we fear that the increase in university patenting exacerbates differences across universities in terms of financial resources and research outcome

learning from one another international policy emulation and university industry technology transfer cross border emulation of economic and technology policies among industrial economy governments has become common in recent years and spans policies ranging from intellectual property rights to collaborative r d recent initiatives by a number of industrial economy governments suggest considerable interest in emulating the bayh dole act of 1980 a piece of legislation that is widely credited with stimulating significant growth in university industry technology transfer and research collaboration in the united states i examine the effects of bayh dole on university industry collaboration and technology transfer in the united states emphasizing the lengthy history of both activities prior to 1980 and noting the extent to which these activities are rooted in the incentives created by the unusual scale and structure by comparison with western europe or japan of the us higher education system efforts at emulation of the bayh dole policy by other governments are likely to have modest success at best without greater attention to the underlying structural differences among the higher education systems of these nations copyright 2011 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

on the measurement of poverty official statistics in the united states and the united kingdom show a rise in poverty between the 1970 s and the 1980 s but scepticism has been expressed with regard to these findings in particular the methods employed in the measurement of poverty have been the subject of criticism this paper re examines three basic issues in measuring poverty the choice of the poverty line the index of poverty and the relation between poverty and inequality one general theme running through the paper is that there is a diversity of judgments which enter the measurement of poverty and that it is necessary to recognize these explicitly in the procedures adopted there is likely to be disagreement about the choice of poverty line affecting both its level and its structure in this situation we may only be able to make comparisons and not to measure differences and the comparisons may lead only to a partial rather than a complete ordering the first section of the paper discusses the stochastic dominance conditions which allow such comparisons illustrating their application by reference to data for the united states the choice of poverty measure has been the subject of an extensive literature and a variety of measures have been proposed in the second section of the paper a different approach is suggested considering a class of measures satisfying certain general properties and seeking conditions under which all members of the class which includes many of those proposed give the same ranking those sceptical about measures of poverty often assert that poverty and inequality are being confounded the third section of the paper distinguishes four different viewpoints and relates them to theories of justice and views of social welfare

changes in university patent quality after the bayh dole act a re examination abstract the bayh dole act of 1980 facilitated the retention by universities of patent rights resulting from government funded academic research thus encouraging university entry into patenting and licensing though the act is widely recognized to be a major change in federal policy towards academic research surprisingly little empirical analysis has been directed at assessing its impacts on the academy and on university industry research relationships an important exception is the work of henderson et al rev econ stat 80 1998 119 127 which examined the impact of bayh dole on the quality of university patents as measured by the number of times they are cited in subsequent patents the authors found that the quality of academic patents declined dramatically after bayh dole a finding that has potentially important policy implications in this paper we revisit this influential finding by using a longer stream of patent citations data we show that the results of the henderson et al study reflect changes in the intertemporal distribution of citations to university patents rather than a significant change in the total number of citations these patents eventually receive this has important implications not only for the evaluation of bayh dole but also for future research using patent citations as economic indicators