Development is a human problem and is aimed at changing man and his economic, social, ecological environment. Throughout history, man has acquired new knowledge to shape his future. As human needs multiplied and became more complex, science and technology – processes of systematic inquiry for...

The article analyses the impact of agricultural trade liberalisation on economic growth as well as on the welfare of rural livelihoods in developing countries through technological transformation in the agricultural sector. The article, based on existing literature, considers the background and...

Chemical pesticides will continue to play a role in pest management for the future. In many situations, the benefits of pesticide use are high relative to the risks or there are no practical alternatives. The number and diversity of biological sources will increase, and products that originate...

Agriculture’s significant global contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has spurred consumer and retailer mitigation interest. Biotechnology, designed to enhance the marketable portion of yield via improved disease, weed and pest management with the same or lower use of inputs, is...

This paper presents econometric evidence of the effects of economic incentives and institutions on national aggregate private agricultural R&D investments. A model is proposed and fitted to annual data for seven European Union countries, 1984-1995. We find strong impacts of both incentives and...

This paper presents one of the first systematic treatments of economic incentives in the management of academic research and major inefficiencies in common funding mechanisms. Building on well-known but unusual attributes of research whereby the research payoff is only the “"best”" of...

Advancement in biotechnology requires continued innovative activity by firms. To grow, biotechnology firms must understand the factors affecting their innovative activity. Such understanding also informs policy makers, and supports the development of policies promoting one's biotechnology...

There is a growing body of literature on the safe use of biotechnology and the need for an international biosafety protocol and national regulations to facilitate the safe development and transfer of biotechnology. Most of these studies, however, address the issue of biosafety from a scientific,...

Most of the literature attributes credit constraints in small-farm developing-country agriculture to the variability of returns to investment in this sector. But the literature does not fully explain lenders. reluctance to finance investments in technologies that provide both higher average and...

Transgenic crops are relatively new technologies being adopted rapidly in the United States and in a few other countries. The economic impacts of these technologies have, thus far, been estimated in a piecemeal fashion. The purpose of this study was to collect and characterize the economic...