Promotion of healthier eating choices and adherence to recommended dietary norms are important elements of the UK Government’s food strategy to combat the rising incidence of obesity. This paper explores the paradox of rising incidence of obesity over the last two decades even as consumers...

This paper examines international trends in plant variety protection, a form of intellectual property rights for plant varieties akin to patents. The TRIPs Agreement under the WTO has given a strong impetus for the universalisation of plant variety protection regimes with common standards of...

Many developing countries are attempting to address the inequities of plant breeders' rights by incorporating farmers' rights provisions in their Plant Variety Protection legislations to reward the role of farmers' as conservers and enhancers of agro-biodiversity. Developing countries expect to...

Intellectual property protection, globalization, and pressure on public budgets in many industrialized countries have shifted the balance of plant breeding activity from the public to the private sector. Several economic factors influence the relative shares of public versus private sector plant...

Starting with a brief overview of trends in plant variety protection (PVP) in the UK since inception of PVP legislation, this paper assesses the strength of incentives for innovation provided by the PVP regime. We modify and extend models from the patent literature that attempt to infer the...

The member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) have recently endorsed its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health in an effort to combat the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. We assess the potential consumption impacts of these norms in the United States...

The facilitation of healthier dietary choices by consumers is one of the key elements of the UK Government’s food strategy. Designing and targeting dietary interventions requires a clear understanding of the determinants of dietary choice. Conventional analysis of the determinants of dietary...

Abstract Objectives: The current study aims to estimate the causal effect of increasing levels of urbanisation on mean SBP, and to decompose the direct and indirect effects via hypothesised mediators. Methods: We analysed data from 5, 840 adults (≥ 18 years) from the Andhra Pradesh Children...

Under the TRIPs Agreement, all member-countries of the World Trade Organization are required to provide an "effective" system of plant variety protection within a specific time frame. In many developing countries this has led to a divisive debate about the fundamental desirability of extending...