"Pro-poor" tourism is arguably one of the best green options for addressing LDC poverty, employment and economic diversification initiatives. Although often neglected as a serious policy option - and consequently most of its potential still remains untapped - tourism is the leading export for at...

Bangladesh's international image is not as a popular tourism destination, and many people might be surprised to learn it has three World Heritage sites, including the Sundarbans tiger reserves. Moreover, it is part of important travel circuits for cultural and religious tourism, and has...

This paper empirically analyzes the productivity, profitability, innovation and network effects of a public policy promoting micro and small scale industrial clusters in Ethiopia. To this end, firm-level survey data was collected from randomly selected clustered leather shoe manufacturers that...

The regulatory environment in a country is an important factor that affects firm performance. This study investigates the impact of a particular regulation - license requirements for certain firm activities - on the innovation performance of Indian firms in the 1990s. Using a unique firm-level...

This paper analyses the differentials of productive values in Vietnamese micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and how market constraints have hindered their performance. Quantitative analyses suggest substantial differences in value addition among manufacturing MSMEs, and the crucial...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

The paper addresses the question of whether expanded and strengthened protection of intellectual property (IP) fosters technology transfer to developing countries. Cross-sectional analysis of a representative sample of firms operating in 42 developing economies indicates that going from no IP...

This note discusses the medical/therapeutical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their “political economy” context. First, the very quick development of several vaccines highlights the richness of the basic knowledge waiting for therapeutical exploitation. Such knowledge has largely...

Brazil has evolved strikingly in the last few years in the area of health assistance and access to medicines by its aging and urbanizing population. The government has also set the health industry - which includes pharmaceutical innovation - as one of its strategic sectors to be developed in the...

Public policy debates, about HIV and prevention policy, have tended to occupy one of two extreme positions derived from either rational choice and or structuralists theories. This paper argues that the concept of hope may offer a way through this policy and paradigmatic log-jam. Hope is an...