forest dependence and income distribution in a subsistence economy evidence from india abstract we examine an area of northern india where forestry acts to ameliorate the incidence of poverty and destitution though it does not otherwise contribute significantly to the reduction of income inequality the poor would be doubly disadvantaged without common property access to forest products conservation measures entailing curtailment in the right to common access pose a dilemma this issue is explored here

forest incomes and rural livelihoods in chiradzulu district malawi abstract this paper examines forest income among rural dwellers in one of malawi s most densely populated districts chiradzulu 160 households were interviewed in two sites only 20 km apart purposely selected on the basis of access to a forest reserve people are extremely poor with 97 having incomes of less than 1 usd day forest income constitutes around 15 of total income only non farm income 47 and agriculture 28 rank higher the poorest segment depends more on forest income than the least poor group but the medium income group exhibits the highest dependence fuelwood constitutes the major source of such income followed by fodder the incomes mainly support current consumption people with better access to the forest reserve have higher total income forest income and relative forest income as revealed through a gini coefficient analysis forest resources have an important income equalizing effect across rural households a particular group of resource poor farmers 8 1 of sample with little access to agricultural land and a high representation of female heads derives an average of 65 of their income from the forest an important policy lesson is that restricting people s access to forest resources can have substantial effects on household livelihoods and welfare and would serve to increase income inequalities in the area livelihood researchers should now recognize the substantial income from forest resources

resource degradation and adoption of land conservation technologies in the ethiopian highlands a case study in andit tid north shewa abstract this paper reports results from a study of resource degradation and conservation behavior of peasant households in a degraded part of the ethiopian highlands peasant households choice of conservation technologies is modeled as a two stage process recognition of the erosion problem and adoption and level of use of control practices an ordinal logit model is used to explain parcel level perception of the threat of the erosion problem and the extent of use of conservation practices results show the importance of perception of the threat of soil erosion household land and farm characteristics perception of technology specific attributes and land quality differentials in shaping conservation decisions of peasants furthermore where poverty is widespread and appropriate support policies are lacking results indicate that population pressure per se is unable to encourage sustainable land use the challenge of breaking the poverty environment trap and initiating sustainable intensification thus require policy incentives and technologies that confer short term benefits to the poor while conserving the resource base

government r d subsidies as a signal for private investors abstract government subsidies for r d are intended to promote projects with high returns to society but too little private returns to be beneficial for private investors this may be caused by spillovers or a low appropriability rate apart from the direct funding of these projects government grants may serve as a signal for good investments for private investors we use a simple signaling model with different types of r d projects to capture this phenomenon the agency has a preference for basic research projects as they promise high expected social returns while banks prefer applied research projects with high private returns in a setup where the subsidy can only be used to distinguish between basic and applied research projects government agency s signal is not very helpful for banks however if the subsidy is accompanied by a quality signal it can lead to increased or better selected private investments

effects of wildlife resources on community welfare in southern africa abstract this paper demonstrates the importance of wildlife in the portfolio of environmental income in the livelihoods of poor rural communities living adjacent to a national park the results show that wealthier households use more wildlife resources in total than do relatively poor households however poorer households derive greater proportional benefit than wealthier households from the use of wildlife resources excluding wildlife understates the relative contribution of environmental resources while at the same time overstating the relative contribution of farm and wage income wildlife income alone accounts for about a 5 5 reduction in the proportion of people living below the poverty line furthermore wildlife income has an equalizing effect bringing about a 5 4 reduction in measured inequality regression analysis suggests that the likelihood of belonging to a wealthier category of income increases with an increase in environmental income as expected household wealth significantly and positively affects environmental income generated by households this seems to suggest that wildlife based land reform also needs to empower poor households in the area of capital accumulation while imposing restraints on the use of capital investments by well off households to harvest wildlife

public subsidies and the employment growth of high tech start ups assessing the impact of selective and automatic support schemes the aim of this article is to assess the impact of public subsidies on the employment growth of new technology based firms ntbfs contingent on i the type of policy scheme either selective or automatic and ii the age of the firms at the time of receipt of the subsidy for this purpose we analyze a sample composed of 536 italian independent ntbfs observed during a 10 year period 1994 2003 we estimate augmented gibrat law type dynamic panel data models using different techniques aimed at controlling for the potentially endogenous nature of public financing namely the generalized method of moments system fixed effect instrumental variable and inverse probability treatment weights estimators the results of the estimates show that selective support schemes had a larger impact on employment growth than automatic ones but only if they were awarded in the very early period of the recipient firms lives however selective subsidies awarded to young ntbfs are rare in italy calling into question the capability of the italian industrial policy to sustain the growth of the high tech entrepreneurial sector

business experience and start up size buying more lottery tickets next time around this paper explores the determinants of start up size by focusing on a cohort of 6 247 businesses that started trading in 2004 using a unique dataset on customer records at barclays bank quantile regressions show that prior business experience is significantly related with start up size as are a number of other variables such as age education and bank account activity quantile treatment effects qte estimates show similar results with the effect of business experience on log start up size being roughly constant across the quantiles prior personal business experience leads to an increase in expected start up size of about 50 instrumental variable qte estimates are even higher although there are concerns about the validity of the instrument

links between the local trade in natural products livelihoods and poverty alleviation in a semi arid region of south africa can the local commercialization of natural products contribute to reduced poverty and vulnerability commentary on this issue is mixed with some observers being quite optimistic while others hold a counterview this paper explores the poverty alleviation potential of four products traded in bushbuckridge south africa traditional brooms reed mats woodcraft and marula beer while key in enhancing the livelihood security of the poorest households these products were unlikely to provide a route out of poverty for most although there were exceptions incomes often surpassed local wage rates and some producers obtained returns equivalent to the minimum wage non financial benefits such as the opportunity to work from home were highly rated and the trade was found to represent a range of livelihood strategies both within and across products

option values to conservation and agricultural price policy application to terrace construction in kenya policy reforms to liberalize agricultural markets in developing countries are likely to influence both the level and the variability of prices while considerable attention has been given to the impact of changes in price level on soil and water conservation there has been relatively little analysis of the role of price variability in conservation decisions we present a model of investment under uncertainty to analyze the effect of both level and variability of prices on the decision to invest in conservation the model is applied to adoption of fanya juu terraces in eastern kenya

what do state owned development banks do evidence from bndes 2002 09 summary defendants of state owned development banks emphasize their role in reducing capital constraints and fostering productive investment detractors point out that they may benefit politically connected capitalists or bail out inefficient firms we study the effect of loans and equity investments of the brazilian national development bank bndes and find that they do not have any consistent effect on firm level performance and investment except for a reduction in financial expenditures due to the subsidies accompanying loans however bndes does not systematically lend to underperforming firms our results indicate that bndes subsidizes firms that could fund their projects with other sources of capital

enterprise restructuring and embeddedness a policy and systems perspective this paper presents a dynamic analysis of technological and industrial policies directed to business sector restructuring in increasingly knowledge based economies it simultaneously considers policies which are aimed at promoting restructuring directly and policies aimed at influencing the facilitating structure of largely non business institutions and organizations this paper also offers an explicit analysis of the changing portfolio of policies recognizing the complementarity of both incentives and institutional development and the likelihood of having to adopt under a broad set of circumstances a changing portfolio of horizontal and target incentives policies programs copyright 2000 by oxford university press

interorganizational alliances and the performance of firms a study of growth and innovation rates in a high technology industry this paper investigates the relationship between intercorporate technology alliances and firm performance it argues that alliances are access relationships and therefore that the advantages which a focal firm derives from a portfolio of strategic coalitions depend upon the resource profiles of its alliance partners in particular large firms and those that possess leading edge technological resources are posited to be the most valuable associates the paper also argues that alliances are both pathways for the exchange of resources and signals that convey social status and recognition particularly when one of the firms in an alliance is a young or small organization or more generally an organization of equivocal quality alliances can act as endorsements they build public confidence in the value of an organization s products and services and thereby facilitate the firm s efforts to attract customers and other corporate partners the findings from models of sales growth and innovation rates in a large sample of semiconductor producers confirm that organizations with large and innovative alliance partners perform better than otherwise comparable firms that lack such partners consistent with the status transfer arguments the findings also demonstrate that young and small firms benefit more from large and innovative strategic alliance partners than do old and large organizations copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

the role of natural capital in sustaining livelihoods in remote mountainous regions the case of upper svaneti republic of georgia in the greater caucasus of the republic of georgia proponents of a new ski tourism zone and long term timber concessions claim that new wage opportunities will benefit households these developments will also limit access to common pool resources cprs this study uses the sustainable livelihoods framework to identify the conditions under which a development strategy will improve livelihood outcomes in the region analysis of original household survey data in depth interviews and field observation reveals that households depend on cprs for a range of market and non market benefits low income households depend on cprs for up to 60 of their total income ols regression estimates show that households in villages farthest from market centers have a higher income dependence on cprs and are more likely to participate in forest use activities a majority of households report that there are few available substitutes to improve livelihood outcomes a development strategy should secure access to market benefits from cprs or wage income must increase in proportion to lost cpr income and affordable substitutes must be provided access to non substitutable components of cprs must be secured and the distribution of changes in access to natural capital and new wage opportunities must be accounted for

are stated preferences convergent with revealed preferences empirical evidence from nigeria abstract the debate on the relevance of monetary valuation of environmental goods has often hinged around the convergence of stated and revealed preferences and in turn the actual money choices of respondents in this paper we report two separate experiments conducted in southeastern nigeria to compare irrigators stated willingness to pay for a river basin restoration scheme designed to mitigate soil and water pollution problems in their farms with their actual expenditures to mitigate the same pollution problems we found that the farmers stated and revealed preferences were significantly correlated but yielded significantly different means at 5 level while econometric analysis reveals a systematic association between key socioeconomic variables and farmers stated wtp lending credence to the cvm within its theoretical framework analysis of the qualitative follow ups reveals inconsistencies in some farmers stated and revealed preferences that cannot be satisfactorily explained on the basis of economic theory alone while individual utility maximisation was a dominant driver of both stated and revealed preferences for most farmers lack of environmental awareness information complexity risk aversion and peer pressure were seen to limit the ability and willingness of the least educated segment of the sample to make apparently rational economic decisions in both markets overall the results question the use of convergent and or theoretical validity arguments for justifying and or criticising the use of stated preference experiments in environmental policy

the financing of research and development evidence on the funding gap for rd 2 evidence for high costs of rd 3 there are limits to venture capital as a solution to the funding gap especially in countries where public equity markets are not highly developed and 4 further study of governmental seed capital and subsidy programs using quasi experimental methods is warranted

the participation of new technology based firms in eu funded r d partnerships the role of venture capital this paper investigates the participation of new technology based firms ntbfs in eu funded r d partnerships we examine whether venture capital vc backed firms are more likely to enter these partnerships than their non vc backed peers and the role of the ownership and governance of the vc investor we resort to a mixed method approach we use qualitative information collected through interviews with managers of ntbfs and vc firms to better illustrate our deductively derived theoretical hypotheses that are then tested through a large scale econometric analysis the econometric analysis takes advantage of the vico dataset which includes longitudinal data on 8346 ntbfs from seven european countries observed from 1995 to 2008 out of which 758 were vc backed the econometric results show that vc backing has a strong positive impact on ntbfs participation in eu funded r d partnerships but the magnitude of this effect rapidly decreases with ntbfs prior experience of this type of partnership moreover the magnitude of the impact of vc backing considerably differs depending on the type of investor with bank and government vc exhibiting the strongest positive effects

consumption risk farm characteristics and soil conservation adoption among low income farmers in the philippines abstract this paper investigates patterns of soil conservation adoption among low income farmers in the philippines a model is presented that focuses attention on the role of assets and consumption risk in influencing soil conservation adoption decisions results from a reduced form probit model of adoption are reported these econometric findings indicate that patterns of soil conservation adoption reflect relative risk considerations in addition to farm and household characteristics farm size tenure security labor availability and land quality all exhibit a positive association with soil conservation adoption in contrast controlling on these and other household characteristics the probability of adoption falls as consumption risk rises these results underscore a need for greater sensitivity among policymakers to the role of consumption risk in influencing soil conservation decisions in low income settings

agricultural development with rainforest conservation methods for seeking best bet alternatives to slash and burn with applications to brazil and indonesia abstract forests continue to fall for agricultural purposes throughout the humid tropics with immediate and potentially large consequences for climate change and biodiversity loss issues of key interest to the international community some of the actors directly responsible for forest conversion fell trees to meet food security needs and alleviate poverty issues of urgent interest to them and also to national policymakers this multiplicity of groups with differing often conflicting interests in the multifarious goods and services produced by tropical forests complicates the search for alternative agricultural activities for forest margins since these alternatives must satisfy such divergent objectives this paper sets out a conceptual framework for comparing the impacts of different land use systems and agricultural practices at the margins of tropical rainforests in terms of the concerns and objectives of two key interest groups small scale farmers seeking livelihoods at the forest margins and the international interests in the global public goods and services supplied by tropical rainforests this framework should be useful to a third key group the national and regional policymakers who must consider these and other policy objectives and then decide on courses of action the paper identifies data needs and analytical methods capable of supplying an empirical base for this conceptual framework based on quantifiable indicators it then presents preliminary results of the application of this conceptual framework in indonesia and brazil in association with a global collaborative multidisciplinary research program even using preliminary order of magnitude estimates to be replaced by more precise measurements as they become available this conceptual framework presents results in ways that allow researchers and policymakers to select clear best bets for development when they exist and to assess tradeoffs and options for complementary policy action and research efforts when they do not

the relationship between firm growth size and age estimates for 100 manufacturing industries this study uses a sample of all firms operating in 100 manufacturing industries to examine some aspects of firm dynamics it finds that firm growth the variability of firm growth and the probability that a firm will fail decrease with firm age it also finds that firm growth decreases at a diminishing rate with firm size even after controlling for the exit of slow growing firms from the sample gibrat s law therefore fails although the severity of the failure decreases with firm size copyright 1987 by blackwell publishing ltd

blue carbon knowledge gaps critical issues and novel approaches blue carbon the carbon stored and sequestered in mangrove forests seagrass meadows and tidal salt marshes is considered a cost effective means to achieve positive climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes blue carbon is therefore of considerable interest to the scientific and policy communities and is frequently discussed in relation to carbon markets and climate finance opportunities this paper identifies peer reviewed and gray literature documents that discuss blue carbon in the context of finance and market mechanisms the document set is analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively and the principal scientific economic regulatory social and management issues that emerge are discussed the study reveals that 1 the blue carbon literature is dominated by technical and policy commentary with a dearth of research into practical social considerations and a stark absence of private sector perspectives 2 there is confusion over the nature and role of important concepts including private and public sector finance and instruments and 3 understanding of the important issues of investment priorities and risk considerations is also limited this paper therefore identifies gaps in the blue carbon literature clarifies critical concepts and issues and proposes novel pathways for blue carbon research and project development

venture capitalists and cooperative start up commercialization strategy this paper examines the possible impact of venture capital vc backing on the commercialization direction of technology based start ups by asking to what extent if at all do vc funded start ups engage in cooperative commercialization strategies strategic alliances or technology licensing or both relative to a comparable set of start ups and with what consequences to address these questions i assemble a novel data set that matches firms receiving a federal research and development subsidy through the u s small business innovative research program to vc funded firms by observable characteristics in five technology intensive industries these data allow decoupling of cooperative activity resulting from start up development via the passage of calendar time from that due to association with vcs an analysis of the 696 start ups in the sample split by an external funding source suggests substantial boosts in both cooperative activity associated with vc backed firms and in the likelihood of an initial public offering

labor shortages on small landholdings in malawi implications for policy reforms abstract a simple linear programming model of representative smallholder households is used to investigate the sources of relative scarcity of labor and land in malawi the paradox of on farm labor shortages on small landholdings can be explained by the multiple constraints smallholders face these multiple constraints including lack of finance concerns for food security and others lead to suboptimal allocations of household resources in turn the low returns to labor and land contribute to household food insecurity and a vicious cycle of poverty the findings of the paper provide a clear signal to policymakers and research and extension institutions that these constraints are all linked and addressing one cannot be effective without addressing the others

new technology based firms in europe market penetration public venture capital and timing of investment we investigate the effect of public puvc and private prvc venture capital funds on the sales growth of 6513 european new technology based firms ntbfs during the period from 1992 to 2009 our results show that puvc backed ntbfs underperform with respect to prvc backed ones and do not grow more than non venture capital backed companies the impact of puvc is still not statistically significant even though it is positive when puvc funds target young ntbfs the only notable exception suggesting a positive and statistically significant impact for puvcs is when puvc funds cofinance with prvc funds and both target young firms

asset smoothing consumption smoothing and the reproduction of inequality under risk and subsistence constraints abstract a growing literature asks whether low wealth agents can accumulate assets over time or whether they are trapped in poverty this paper develops a stochastic dynamic programming model with endogenous asset price risk to explore savings and portfolio decisions in a resource poor environment characterized by risk and subsistence constraints optimal portfolio strategies are found to bifurcate despite divisible assets and fully rational agents wealthier agents acquire a higher yielding portfolio and pursue conventional consumption smoothing poorer agents acquire a less remunerative portfolio and pursue asset smoothing rather than consumption smoothing asset based risk coping thus results in positive correlation between initial wealth and portfolio rate of return

incidence of forest income on reduction of inequality evidence from forest dependent households in milieu of joint forest management abstract this study suggests that there is a narrower scope to expand income inequality with the increase in forest source of income to total income relative to non forest income irrespective of the type of forest fringe villages the addition of forest income after joint forest management jfm reduces measured income inequality by about 12 all else equal in the jfm involved households but no such perceptible decrease has been found for non jfm households during this period categorically forest income plays the dominant role in reducing measured income inequality for those households who are relatively asset poor and that also live below poverty line the study also shows that the non involvement in jfm programme by the non jfm households might bring about a major environmental shirking because illegal timber income constitutes the major part in total income for non jfm households even after jfm scenario

links between rural poverty and the environment in developing countries asset categories and investment poverty abstract this paper presents a framework for analyzing the links between poverty and the environment in rural areas of developing countries it introduces the concept of investment poverty and relates it to other measures of poverty in analysis of these links the notion of poverty is examined in the context of categories of assets and categories of environment change with particular focus on farm household income generation and investment strategies as determinants of the links the strength and direction of the poverty environment links are shown to differ even invert depending on the composition of the assets held by the rural poor and the types of environmental problems they face policy strategies need to focus on conditioning variables that affect market development community wealth infrastructure household asset distribution and the affordability and appropriateness of natural resource conservation technologies

rights to forest products deforestation and smallholder income evidence from the western brazilian amazon abstract the causes of tropical deforestation are many and complex but relative financial returns at the household level play a large role in determining which activities and investments are pursued a farm level bioeconomic model indicates that the best course for smallholders in the western brazilian amazon who seek to boost consumption levels over time is to convert forest to agriculture results of a simulated experiment show that permitting sustainable off take of timber products on farms would improve incomes and slow smallholder deforestation but use of cleared land would be little changed because such strong financial incentives exist to harvest timber unsustainably mechanisms for monitoring timber off take will be required the costs of establishing and maintaining them should be shared among all beneficiaries of the environmental services provided by forests

exchange rate dynamics in a model with imperfect capital mobility and asset substitutability abstract this paper analyses the dynamic properties of the exchange rate and the balance of payments in a model which allows for imperfect capital mobility as well as imperfect asset substitutability we show that a monetary expansion leads to a short run overshooting of the exchange rate depending upon the relationship between the degrees of capital mobility and asset substitutability

commons as insurance and the welfare impact of privatization abstract it is shown here that despite the efficiency gains from privatization when markets are incomplete all individuals may be made worse off by privatization even when the resource is equitably privatized such market incompleteness is common in the developing world and can explain the often encountered resistance to efficiency enhancing privatizing reforms especially in the case of village level landholdings and forests the advantage of common held property arises because of its superior insurance properties which tend to provide income maintenance in low states sufficient conditions are established under which any feasible insurance scheme under private property cannot ex ante pareto dominate allocations under the commons

capital market imperfections high tech investment and new equity financing highly variable returns asymmetric information and a lack of collateral should cause small high tech firms to have poor access to debt new equity financing has several advantages over debt but may be costly compared to internal finance we examine an unbalanced panel of over 2 400 publicly traded us high tech companies over the period 1981 98 most small high tech firms obtain little debt financing new equity financing in the form of the initial public offering is very important and permits a major increase in firm size after going public comparatively few firms make heavy use of external finacing

the relationship between r d collaboration subsidies and r d performance empirical evidence from finland and germany this study focuses on the impact of innovation policies and r d collaboration in germany and finland we consider collaboration and subsidies as heterogeneous treatments and perform an econometric matching to analyze r d and patent activity at the firm level in general we find that collaboration has positive effects in germany subsidies for individual research do neither exhibit a significant impact on r d nor on patenting but the innovative performance could be improved by additional incentives for collaboration for finnish companies public funding is an important source of finance for r d without subsidies recipients would show less r d and patenting activity whilst those firms not receiving subsidies would perform significantly better if they were publicly funded copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

economic and biological conditions influence the sustainability of harvest of wild animals and plants in developing countries abstract promoting sustainable use of wild animals and plants is a global target in biodiversity conservation however the role of wild harvest as a conservation tool remains controversial when unsustainable wild harvesting leads to population decline or even extirpation of species when sustainable it has the potential to promote win win solutions for conservation and development we reviewed 87 cases of wild harvesting of vertebrates and plants in developing countries to understand the conditions influencing its sustainability we used random forest and logistic regression to find the most important predictors among a range of biological demographic and economic indicators and to detail the predicted effects on sustainability of harvest species resilience gdp per capita and poverty headcount ratio were the strongest predictors of sustainability species resilience was positively related to sustainability of harvest whereas gdp per capita and poverty ratio were negatively related harvesting a species with low resilience is more likely to be unsustainable when harvested in a middle income high poverty ratio country than in a low income low poverty ratio country this study highlights the risks of wild population harvest under the challenging economic conditions inherent in developing countries and visualize where efforts are most needed to achieve sustainable harvest

inside the black box of outcome additionality effects of early stage government subsidies on resource accumulation and new venture performance this paper examines the outcome additionality of prestigious early stage government subsidies drawing on arguments from liabilities of newness and certification literatures we develop a mediated model that unpacks the outcome additionality of the subsidy we hypothesize that subsidized new ventures attract more human and financial capital than their non subsidized counterparts because the association with a prestigious government organization signals legitimacy of the new venture such legitimacy is crucial for attracting qualified employees and financiers the effect of the access to human and financial capital in turn has long term and substantial influence on performance whereas the effect of the subsidy itself is marginal and short lived applying a novel matching approach we compare 130 approved applicants of a prestigious government subsidy with a control group of 154 applications rejected at the very last stage thereby overcoming some of the selection and endogeneity biases associated with similar studies the hypothesized model receives strong support by the data these findings have several implications for government support of new ventures as well as scholars in the field

environmental and market determinants of economic orientation among rain forest communities evidence from a large scale survey in western amazonia abstract large scale surveys of rain forest livelihoods open up new possibilities for understanding the role of forest resources in the well being of forest peoples but often overlook the factors that influence the diverse economic foci of forest based communities in this paper we describe the peruvian amazon rural livelihoods and poverty parlap project which seeks to identify the factors that contribute to rural poverty among indigenous and folk peoples through the first large scale survey conducted in this data poor region our paper draws upon a community census undertaken in four major river sub basins in eastern peru n 919 communities and asks the question how do environmental and market factors influence the economic orientation of rain forest communities recognizing that standard approaches that explain activity choice by current conditions are problematic because of potential endogeneity we propose a new analytical framework that examines how historical initial conditions determine current conditions and thus current economic activities our approach produces a rich array of results that point to the importance of initial environmental endowments and market access of communities in shaping their economic orientation interacting in different ways depending on the key natural resource upon which they rely

prices and tree planting on hillside farms in palawan abstract this paper investigates determinants of tree planting decisions on low income farms in the philippines the analysis quantifies the extent to which agricultural prices price uncertainty and farm specific characteristics help to explain mango planting decisions on hillside farms regression analysis is applied to data on tree planting for 1981 94 results indicate tree planting is positively correlated with mango prices and negatively correlated with prices of competing crops relative price uncertainty and farm size also play important roles in explaining tree planting patterns implications for policies to encourage tree planting are discussed

public policy measures to support new technology based firms in the european union abstract this paper provides a review of public policy measures implemented in eu countries to support new technology based firms ntbfs during the 1980s and early 1990s it identifies five policy areas and provides a synthesis of the policy developments during this period and an assessment of their effectiveness the policy areas examined are science parks the supply of phds in science and technology the relationships between ntbfs and universities research institutions direct financial support to ntbfs from national governments and the impact of technological advisory services on ntbfs although considered independently these issues are clearly part of an interdependent system of policies and we conclude with an overview of the whole policy area together with our personal recommendations for its improvement

ecotourism and economic incentives an empirical approach within the new array of green products and services ecotourism claims to combine environmental responsibility with the generation of local economic benefits that will have both a development impact and serve as conservation incentives economic incentives are imperative for nature conservation particularly in remote and ill monitored regions where a weak presence of the state hinders the use of alternative tools of environmental regulation in the following the link between tourism local benefits and conservation is conceptualised and analysed empirically using data from the cuyabeno wildlife reserve in the ecuadorian amazon region near the border of colombia and peru three cuyabeno indigenous groups have developed different modes of tourism participation ranging from autonomous operations to pure salary employment a quantification of local cash flows from tourism allows for a comparative analysis of income structure spending and the impacts on local development and on conservation attitudes it is concluded that in the whole study area tourism has actually provided significant additional income counter to common belief the mode of participation is less decisive for local income generation than the tourist attraction of the natural site the degree of tourism specialisation and the level of local organisation however as a conservation incentive the effectiveness of tourism income depends on the incentive structure inherent in the mode of participation and on the substitution versus complementarity of other productive activities only if tourism changes labour and land allocation decisions will it have a local conservation impact it is discussed under which circumstances the conjectured link between tourism local incomes and conservation is likely to be effective this leads to some general lessons for government policies for the design of integrated conservation and development projects icdps and to a number of site specific recommendations for improving incentive structures 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

poverty risk aversion and path dependence in low income countries experimental evidence from ethiopia in most low income countries rural households depend on mixed rain fed agriculture livestock production which is very risky due to numerous market failures there are few ways to shift risks to third parties the literature has focused on what determines the responses of households in such environments of special concern are path dependencies in which households experiencing failure are prone to further failure and potential poverty traps this paper estimates levels and determinants of risk aversion in the highlands of ethiopia we find high risk aversion and evidence that constraints have important impacts on risk averting behavior with perhaps significant implications for long term poverty the results also suggest the possibility of path dependence and offer insights into links between risk aversion and poverty traps copyright 2009 oxford university press

soil erosion and smallholders conservation decisions in the highlands of ethiopia abstract soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental problems in ethiopia coupled with growing populations falling per capita food production and worsening poverty loss of productive land due to land degradation undermines rural livelihoods and national food security despite their awareness of the erosion problem peasants investments in land have been limited we use an applied nonseparable model to simulate conservation decisions pervasive market imperfections poverty and high rates of time preference seem to undermine erosion control investments lack of technologies which provide quick returns to subsistence constrained peasants also seem to deter such investments lower private incentives to internalize the intertemporal land degradation externality may require public intervention

links between nonfarm income and farm investment in african households adding the capital market perspective farm household surveys in the 1970s and 1980s showed that nonfarm activities provide an important share of household income contrasting with the conventional image of rural african households as deriving their food entitlement almost exclusively from the land e g matlon collier and lal low reardon et al haggblade hazell and brown much of the literature on nonfarm income has concentrated

the ecological footprint of poverty alleviation evidence from mexico s oportunidades program abstract we study the consequences of poverty alleviation programs for environmental degradation we exploit the community level eligibility discontinuity for a conditional cash transfer program in mexico to identify the impacts of income increases on deforestation and use the program s initial randomized rollout to explore household responses we find that additional income raises consumption of land intensive goods and increases deforestation the observed production response and deforestation increase are larger in communities with poor road infrastructure this suggests that better access to markets disperses environmental harm and that the full effects of poverty alleviation on the environment can be observed only where poor infrastructure localizes them

when bureaucrats meet entrepreneurs the design of effective public venture capital programmes recently public efforts to finance small high technology firms have proliferated we review the motivations for these efforts and make some preliminary observations about their design we explore the underlying challenges that the financing of young growth firms poses the ways that specialised financial intermediaries address them and the rationales for public efforts to finance these companies the final section makes a set of observations about the ways in which the structure of these efforts can most effectively complement private sector activity a frequent fault in programme design is the presumption that technological criteria can be divorced from business considerations when evaluating firms the federal government has played an active role in financing new firms particularly in high technology industries since the soviet union s launch of the sputnik satellite in recent years european and asian nations and many us states have adopted similar initiatives while these programmes precise structures have differed the efforts have been predicated on two shared assumptions i that the private sector provides insufficient capital to new firms and ii that the government either can identify investments which will ultimately yield high social and or private returns or can encourage financial intermediaries to do so in contrast to other government interventions designed to boost economic growth such as privatisation programmes these claims have received little scrutiny by economists the neglect of these questions is unfortunate while the sums of money involved are modest relative to public expenditures on defence procurement or retiree benefits these programmes are very substantial when compared to contemporaneous private investments in new firms government programmes in this arena have been divided between those efforts that directly fund entrepreneurial firms and those that encourage or subsidise the development of outside investors in this paper i will focus on public venture capital initiatives programmes that make equity or equity like investments in young firms or encourage other intermediaries to make such investments in some such programmes such as the advanced technology program and the small business innovation research programmes discussed below the funds are provided as a contract or outright grant while these efforts have proliferated a consensus as to how to structure these programmes remains elusive while the design of regulatory agencies has been extensively studied from a theoretical and empirical perspective little work has

good and bad growth the human development reports abstract the 1996 human development report undp 1996 is about economic growth and human development in keeping with past reports in the series it emphasizes the diversity of country performance in improving human development indicators at given rates of growth this article reviews what the human development reports have said on this topic looking at how well the main messages have been supported by data and analysis and how compelling they are as a basis for public action

the effects of structural adjustment on deforestation and forest degradation in lowland bolivia bolivia s structural adjustment policies initiated in 1985 increased poverty among certain groups but this did not lead to widespread migration to the agricultural frontier nor did adjustment greatly affect the average area planted in annual crops by small lowland farmers structural adjustment contributed to large scale forest clearing for soybean production for export and to a lesser extent forest degradation by lumber companies the economic benefits generated by soybean and timber expansion may have outweighed the environmental costs but alternative policies might have reduced those costs and improved the distribution of the benefits

science parks and regional innovation performance in fiscal austerity era less is more european financial crisis has raised questions about the sustainability and the contribution of innovation anchors especially in southern european countries such as greece this paper utilizes the concept of regional innovation systems riss and introduces a methodological approach that allows for evaluating an science and technology park s stp contribution into the corresponding ris performance taking into consideration 1 the ris idiosyncrasies 2 the dominant role of government expenditures on r d and 3 the underlying complexity of knowledge production and management under alternative sets of restrictions imposed by fiscal consolidation on the preferences of authorities which design and implement science technology and innovation sti policies our framework relies on the estimation of a multi input multi output latent knowledge production function approach and the corresponding efficiency indices data requirements are sourced from the regional innovation scoreboard for the four greek regions and from a small scale case study with respect to the examined regional stp covering the period from 2000 to 2012 the main empirical findings highlight that the contribution of the examined stp in the corresponding ris performance diminishes alongside with the decrease in gerd investment levels with respect to all the efficiency indices these findings are attributed to the structural characteristics of both the ris and the stp under investigation and capture their dependence on managing public financial resources for sti activities

poverty and environment in latin america concepts evidence and policy implications abstract who is responsible for the ongoing degradation of natural resources such as agricultural soils rangeland and forests evidence from across latin america suggests that the nonpoor and the poor are both at fault while the poor lack the means to invest in protecting natural resources both the nonpoor and the poor often lack the incentives for good resource stewardship policies for agricultural intensification and livelihood diversification can alleviate poverty and its capacity constraint but incentive policies for good stewardship are critically needed such policies should be targeted to specific environmental problems and tailored to the motivations of rural decision makers

poverty alleviation and tropical forests what scope for synergies abstract this paper explores the state of the art of the two way causal links between poverty alleviation and natural tropical forests microimpacts of rising poverty can increase or slow forest loss at the macrolevel poverty also has an ambiguous effect but it is probable that higher income stimulates forest loss by raising demand for agricultural land the second question is what potential forest led development has to alleviate a country s poverty in terms of producer benefits consumer benefits and economy wide employment natural forests widely serve as safety nets for the rural poor but it proves difficult to raise producer benefits significantly urban consumer benefits from forest an important target for pro poor agricultural innovation are limited and seldom favor the poor absorption of poor unskilled labor is low in forestry which tends to be capital intensive natural forests may thus lack comparative advantage for poverty alleviation there are few win win synergies between natural forests and national poverty reduction which may help to explain why the loss of tropical forests is ongoing this may have important implications for our understanding of sustainable forest development and for the design of both conservation and poverty alleviation strategies

household wealth status and natural resource use in the kat river valley south africa abstract much work has demonstrated the significant role and value of non timber forest products ntfps in the livelihoods of rural people in southern africa and elsewhere the findings provide a mean or composite picture averaged across the sample households within each community yet within any given community there is significant socio economic differentiation it is important to acknowledge such differentiation when considering policy and management interventions to support rural livelihoods and promote sustainable resource use this paper reports on a study in south africa the objective of which was to explore wealth related differences and similarities in the use and value of ntfps data on ntfp consumption purchase and sale were collected from households in three rural villages households were divided into three wealth classes and patterns of ntfps use between the classes examined there was no difference in the proportions of households in each wealth class using ntfps nor the total number of ntfps used per household yet there was some supporting evidence that poorer households derive greater benefits from ntfps than do wealthy or intermediate households one clear difference was that with increasing wealth households purchased significantly more ntfps and a greater proportion of wealthy households did so conversely a greater proportion of poor households were involved in the sale of one or more ntfps and they sold a greater number per household compared to wealthy and intermediate households detailed examination of use and value of four ntfps fuelwood wild fruits edible herbs and grass hand brushes revealed that in all instances the poorest households used more of the resource per capita than the other wealth classes this was not the case for comparisons based on the total household as the unit of analysis gross annual direct use value did not differ between the wealth classes for any of the four ntfps examined at the household level but on a per capita basis a significantly higher gross annual direct use value was evident within poorer households for fuelwood and edible herbs the significance of these differences is discussed

forest clearing livelihood strategies and welfare evidence from the tsimane in bolivia this study analyzes the relationship between forest households livelihood strategies and forest clearing and the relationship of both to welfare the analysis relies on a rich panel dataset collected on the tsimane communities in bolivia to highlight how forest households combine sales and wage activities forest clearing is associated with all livelihood strategies but the association with welfare differs depending on the strategy pursued households that clear more and that generate their earnings by combining agricultural sales and wage activities are better off judged in terms of assets than those undertaking other strategies by contrast households in a subsistence strategy are not able to accumulate assets in the long run overall households clear only small areas of forest which has a positive effect on welfare and enables accumulation of assets

are firms that received r d subsidies more innovative this paper looks at the effectiveness of r d grants for canadian plants that already benefit from r d tax credits using a non parametric matching estimator we find that firms that benefited from both policy measures introduced more new products than their counterparts that only benefited from r d tax incentives they also made more world first product innovations and were more successful in commercializing their innovations

freely disposable time a time and money integrated measure of poverty and freedom summary this paper develops tests and discusses a metric for livelihood assessment that integrates cash flow and time use households it expresses how much time the household adults have left after satisfying the household s basic needs e g for food sleep care consumables and leisure this freely disposable time fdt may be put to any use available and allowed in the local context such as above basic leisure work to acquire above basic consumer goods or investments in the future such as education or soil conservation thus fdt represents people s freedoms and a key condition for any out of poverty strategy the fdt methodology is illustrated with a number of characteristic livelihood strategies and tested on peri urban farming livelihoods in india and some typical dutch households the fdt outcomes methodology strengths and limitations are compared with those of an allied discretionary time indicator paired time money indicators and purely monetary e g income or expenditure indicators of poverty and welfare

when fishery rhymes with poverty a first step beyond the old paradigm on poverty in small scale fisheries abstract in this paper we first look retrospectively at the perceptions embraced by academics international agencies and practitioners of the relation between fisheries and poverty in developing countries and we try to identify the underlying paradigms which have structured these perceptions the review reveals how the debate has focused on the economic low income and biological overexploitation aspects of the problem we then revisit these perceptions in the light of the recent conclusions drawn from other sectors and in particular from the new consensus on poverty proposed by the international community incorporation of the recent research on poverty helps to show how socio institutional mechanisms governing people s access to fisheries resources rather than the resources themselves play such a critical role in vulnerability to poverty finally a typology identifying four different categories of intrasectoral exclusion mechanisms is developed and illustrated through empirical studies derived from african and asian fisheries

wealth differentiation in household use and trade in non timber forest products in south africa findings from southern africa and internationally indicate the local use and trade of ntfps to be significant however most present a composite picture failing to account for intra community socio economic differences these differences may have implications for policy and practice related to poverty alleviation and sustainable use this paper reports on a study in south africa which explored the relationship between household wealth and the use procurement and sale of ntfps in two villages there was no influence of wealth on the proportion of households using or purchasing most of the ntfps or the number used however wealthier households bought significantly more resources per household and poor households at one village sold significantly more these results are discussed within the context of local conditions and poverty alleviation debates

village economic opportunity forest dependence and rural livelihoods in east kalimantan indonesia summary the changing role of forests in people s livelihoods in frontier areas is important from the perspective of poverty alleviation and forest conservation this study explores the link between expanding economic opportunities forest dependence and welfare in 73 villages village economic options forest cover and land suitability for agriculture and forestry are determining factors of people s well being increased accessibility to markets and deforestation are strongly associated with economic diversity at the village level increased economic diversity larger areas of forests more intensive land use higher endowments of agricultural land and forest and higher village population are related to increased well being

who participates in r d subsidy programs the case of spanish manufacturing firms abstract empirical evidence on the effectiveness of r d subsidies to firms has produced mixed results so far one possible explanation is that firms and project selection rules may be quite heterogeneous both across agencies and across industries leading to different outcomes in terms of the induced additional private effort here we focus on the participation stage using a sample of spanish firms we test for differences across agencies and industries our results suggest that firms in the same industry face different hurdles to participate in different agencies programs that participation patterns may reflect a combination of agency goals and that patterns differ across high tech and low tech industries

is subsidizing entry an optimal policy public subsidies in support of new firm foundation are among the most frequently used instruments of industrial policy in the euro zone this paper analyses their effectiveness and efficiency vis a vis some features of the overall process of industry dynamics in italian manufacturing to this end the survival and growth patterns of new small firms are investigated using a unique dataset on electrical and electronic engineering in italy as regards survival our results confirm the findings of other studies namely that the hazard rates are particularly high in the early stages of firm s life cycle as far as growth is concerned the study s main finding is that gibrat s law fails to hold in the years immediately following start up when smaller firms must rush in order to achieve a size large enough to enhance their likelihood of survival conversely in later stages of firm s life cycle the law cannot be rejected these results radically question the use of subsidies as an optimal policy for the support of new entries since the subsidy brings about a major bias in the process of market selection including substitution and deadweight effects and hampers the post entry scale adjustment of newborn firms

producing woodfuel for urban centers in the democratic republic of congo a path out of poverty for rural households woodfuel is a renewable energy source with good potential for climate change mitigation in the democratic republic of congo drc the sector employs over 300 000 people for the supply of kinshasa alone but the benefits to the poor are often unknown this paper analyzes the contribution of commercial woodfuel production to livelihoods and poverty reduction in the drc woodfuel revenues especially those of charcoal contribute substantially to producers household income ranging from 12 for fuelwood producers around kisangani to 75 for charcoal producers around kinshasa it supports basic needs and investments in other livelihood activities for 82 of charcoal producers and 65 of fuelwood producers which helps to reduce poverty the contribution of woodfuel commercialization to poverty reduction should be part of energy and forestry policies

in search of complementary assets the determinants of alliance formation of high tech start ups abstract why do new technology based firms ntbfs cooperate starting from teece s teece d j 1986 profiting from technological innovation implications for integration collaboration licensing and public policy research policy 15 285 305 conceptual framework and taking advantage of subsequent literature on alliance formation in the resource and competence based tradition and in the social structure perspective we derive an empirical model that aims at highlighting the inducements and obstacles that these firms face in alliance formation according to firm specific characteristics and the nature of the alliance in particular a distinction is made between exploitative commercial alliances and explorative technological alliances the econometric estimates based on a large sample of italian young high tech firms that are observed from 1994 to 2003 provide strong evidence supporting two key intuitions of teece s work first the combination of specialized complementary assets appears to be a key driver of the formation of exploitative commercial alliances by ntbfs more specifically patent holding affects positively the likelihood to establish commercial alliances but this propensity is found to rapidly decrease with firm size suggesting that as long as ntbfs become larger and possess specialized commercial assets their urge for commercial alliances diminishes second following the parallelism set forth by teece between search for alliance partners and access to external financing the analysis indicates that potentially beneficial alliances may not take place because of the high transaction costs faced by smaller ntbfs in this respect our results clearly support the view that sponsor institutions as public research organizations venture and corporate venture capitalists may sensibly reduce these costs and that their role crucially depends on both the identity of the sponsor and the type of alliance

african evidence on the relation of poverty time preference and the environment abstract it is typically argued in the economics literature that the poor operate with a higher rate of time preference than their wealthier counterparts the poor it is suggested have a higher rate of time preference because they are more concerned about present survival than they are about saving for the future such thinking is also central to the economic growth for environmental conservation and the poverty induced environmental degradation arguments according to these assertions wealth allows people to consider the future and invest in environmental conservation and poverty leaves people with no alternative but to exploit the environment so that they may feed their families today evidence from the food security and famine early warning fields suggests that households in many african contexts behave quite to the contrary during periods of food shortage poor households will often undertake extreme measures in the present including depriving the family of needed calories in order to preserve productive capital for the future such as a plough oxen or seed stock this evidence suggests that poor african households may in fact have very low rates of time preference this calls into question our general assumptions about discount rates for developing countries for which rates of time preference are a theoretical determinant

farm nonfarm linkages in rural sub saharan africa this paper is an accumulation over the past 25 years of a body of detailed work examining the structure of africa s rural nonfarm economy first it systematically reviews empirical evidence on the nature and magnitude of the african rural nonfarm economy it then explores differences across locality and size across countries and over time in an effort to assess likely patterns of growth a subsequent review of key production and consumption parameters allows an estimate of the magnitude of the agricultural growth multipliers in africa the paper concludes with a brief discussion of policies and programs that will be necessary if farm nonfarm growth linkages are to achieve their full potential

combining income and assets measures to include the transitory nature of poverty in assessments of forest dependence evidence from the democratic republic of congo abstract a considerable amount of research on poverty environment relations in developing countries under the cifor pen initiative focuses on household income generation from forests using total annual income as a measure of poverty however income alone produces a static picture in a snapshot of time while poverty is a dynamic state that can be a transitory phenomenon using income only also fails to consider that households can liquidate asset to overcome income shocks here we show that using asset quintiles measured by value of assets produce a distinctly different pattern than the commonly observed negative relation between income and forest dependence we then present an approach enabling categorization of households as chronic or transient poor transient rich and rich providing a more nuanced picture than that provided by cifor pen studies so far the validity of groupings is tested by comparing household characteristics and exposure to shocks we then show that the chronic poor are most reliant on forest income while the transient poor consume a higher share of harvested forest products the transient rich have higher agricultural productivity and absolute forest income rich households relies more on business based on the results we suggest recommendations for improving future studies on poverty environment relations

multistage selection and the financing of new ventures using a random sample of 221 new swedish ventures initiated in 1998 we examine why some new ventures are more likely than others to successfully be awarded capital from external sources we examine venture financing as a staged selection process in which two sequential selection events systematically winnow the population of ventures and influence which ventures receive financing for a venture to receive external financing its founders must first select it as a candidate for external funding and then a financier must fund it we find evidence that founders select ventures as candidates for external finance based on their perceptions of market competition market growth and employment growth while financiers base funding decisions on objective verifiable indicators of venture development such as the completion of organizing activities marketing activities and the level of sales of the venture our findings have implications for venture financing and evolutionary theories of social processes

forests livelihoods and conservation broadening the empirical base summary more than 10 000 years after the agricultural revolution started millions of rural smallholders across the developing world may still derive as much income from foraging forests and wildlands as from cultivating crops these steady environmental income flows come often from public forests and are extracted by men and women alike however inflexible supplies from nature the physical hardship of harvesting and commonly low returns limit their role as safety nets and pathways out of poverty while their harvesting does not preclude the ongoing conversion of wildlands to agriculture privileged access to high quality environmental resources can become a strong local conservation motive

commodity prices money surprises and fed credibilit strict monetarist theory in an extreme form holds that excessive money growth or the expectation of future money growth shows up immediately in the rapid inflation of goods prices however it is widely argued that for most goods prices are in fact sticky in the short run and reflect money growth only in the long run if one seeks a sensitive market measure of the perceived looseiless or tightness of monetary policy one must look elsewhere than at the general price level interest rates being determined in quickly adjusting financial markets are free to respond immediately to expectations regarding monetary policy in 1981 and 1982 every friday at 4 10 p m eastern standard time the federal reserve board would announce the money stock for the week ending nine days previously if the announced money stock was different from what the market had been expecting interest rates generally jumped in the same direction clearly they were responding to revisions of the expected future path of the money stock but nominal interest rates are an ambiguous indicator of expectations on the one hand an announced increase in the money stock may be received by the market as indicating a higher

a model of shifting cultivation can soil conservation reduce deforestation shifting cultivators manage soil not only by adjusting soil use on already cleared lands as in continuous cultivation but also by clearing forests to obtain new fertile soils this study examines the crucial link between on farm soil conservation and deforestation in shifting cultivation by modeling forest clearing as an investment in soil for a private farmer more generally by doing so the study attempts to integrate deforestation and soil conservation models which have been separately developed in the literature our policy goal is to arrest tropical deforestation as destruction of global commons caused by land degradation in shifting cultivation while improving the well being of poor shifting cultivators our integrated approach enables joint policy analyses of deforestation and land degradation three welfare enhancing policies are considered the first is agricultural and nonagricultural subsidies affecting farm and nonfarm income opportunities the second is fiscal and tenure policies affecting discount rates our question is whether the link between forest clearing and soil fertility alters the outcomes of these two standard macroeconomic policies commonly found in the literature the third policy or program is various soil conservation measures affecting soil regeneration and erosivity on already cleared lands this article examines a very important question which has received little attention in previous theoretical works can soil conservation reduce deforestation this study confirms anti deforestation effects of the promotion of nonfarming activities a common and often emphasized finding in previous works among shifting cultivators more importantly it also demonstrates that improving various soil conservation measures not only discourages forest clearing among shifting cultivators but also tends to have greater effects on forest protection than promoting nonfarming activities contrarily agricultural price subsidy or technological progress gives rise to the opposite outcome and lowering the farmer s discount rate or improving tenure security encourages him her to clear more forests just to accumulate soil

capital mobility and exchange rate overshooting abstract this paper examines the relation between the degree of capital mobility and the exchange rate overshooting phenomenon in a framework that employs a stock formulation of the capital account the results are compared with those emerging from the corresponding flow formulation and it is shown that the stock formulation modifies the quantitative but not qualitative implications of the model

globalization and the connection of remote communities a review of household effects and their biodiversity implications abstract the remote regions of the world provide refuge to a disproportionate amount of the earth s biodiversity as globalization continues isolated human communities in these regions are increasingly connected to global market migration and technology networks we review the diffuse literature on the household effects of changing market access migration and technology adoption in remote regions and implications for native biodiversity market access affects biodiversity in remote communities through changes in household economics and social networks migration either to or from remote settlements affects biodiversity through changes in population remittances human capital and social networks finally we consider effects due to production public infrastructure and information and communication technologies there is much ambiguity surrounding these causal pathways and thus we also examine the roles of various ecological household community and institutional mediating factors in determining the impacts of global connection finally we explore the limitations of our current knowledge and research practices and propose directions for future work to address key uncertainties in theory and evidence as well as weaknesses in methodological approaches we recommend a broad and interdisciplinary mode of inquiry as the best means toward clarifying globalization s impacts on human settlements and the biodiversity harbored in the earth s remaining remote regions

microcredit social capital and common pool resources abstract the paper presents a conceptual scheme for understanding the impact of microcredit small loans to poor borrowers on common pool resources impacts on common pool resources are posited to occur through changes in household production and consumption the focus on women and the social capital created from group training decision making and risk bearing with the group lending techniques characteristic of many microcredit programs enhanced human and social capital can improve environmental outcomes a nonrandom survey of microfinance organizations suggests increased environmental awareness and potential cpr stewardship through microcredit but empirical research is needed to demonstrate actual impacts

confronting the coffee crisis can fair trade organic and specialty coffees reduce small scale farmer vulnerability in northern nicaragua summary this paper links changing global coffee markets to opportunities and vulnerabilities for sustaining small scale farmer livelihoods in northern nicaragua changing governance structures corporate concentration oversupply interchangeable commodity grade beans and low farm gate prices characterize the crisis in conventional coffee markets in contrast certified fair trade and organic are two alternative forms of specialty coffee trade and production that may offer opportunities for small scale producers a research team surveyed 228 farmers to measure the impact of sales on organic and fair trade markets the results suggest that participation in organic and fair trade networks reduces farmers livelihood vulnerability 2004 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

complementarities in innovation policy this paper develops a framework for testing discrete complementarities in innovation policy using european data on obstacles to innovation we propose a discrete test of supermodularity in innovation policy leading to a number of inequality constraints we apply our test to two types of innovation decisions to innovate or not and if so by how much we find that the evidence regarding the existence of complementarity in innovation policies depends on the phase of innovation that is targeted getting firms innovative or increasing their innovation intensity as well as on the particular pair of policies that is being considered the two phases of the innovation process i e the probability of becoming an innovator and the intensity of innovation are subject to different constraints interestingly there seems to be a need to adopt a package of policies to make firms innovate while a more targeted choice among policies is necessary to make them more innovative

is bioprospecting a viable strategy for conserving tropical ecosystems many prominent scientists avidly advocate bio prospecting the systematic search for new com mercial applications for biota especially hithertounstudied species as a mechanism for inducingtropical biodiversity conservation by making itcommercially attractive wilson 1992 reid et al 1993 paho 1996 weiss and eisner 1998 bio prospecting s premise is that nature contains hid den assets of potentially huge yet unknownmagnitude to humankind that can motivate andeven nance biodiversity conservation in the trop ics this undiscovered genetic or biochemical in formation is commonly framed in the context ofpotential improvements in medicine or food thusde ning a massive global population of potentialbene ciaries it is further argued that bioprospect ing can affect social and economic development indeveloping countries by rewarding biota rich butincome poor tropical communities that preserveand wisely manage their genetic resources thepremise of bioprospecting coupled with the claimthat practically all of humankind stands tobene t and perhaps most especially the poorestof the poor naturally leads to an urgent desire toconserve tropical biodiversity in order to enablediscovery extraction and value adding transfor mation of tropical biota speci cally it is claimed that bioprospectingstimulates conservation through two mechanisms first bioprospecting rms should be willing topay to preserve biodiversity for its innovationoption value since they stand to reap direct nan cial bene ts from any marketable discoveries sec ond conditional on an increase in life sciences rms willingness to pay for conservation localinhabitants and landholders valuation of biodi versity will change to the extent that they asstewards over biodiverse habitats are compen sated for their contribution to bioprospecting ac tivities to date most attention with respect to