The tsunami that deeply impacted the North Indian Ocean shores on 26 December 2004, called for urgent rehabilitation of coastal infrastructures to restore the livelihood of local populations. A spatial and statistical analysis was performed to identify what geomorphological and biological...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the effects of international R&D cooperation on firms’ economic performance. Our approach, based on a complete data set with information about Spanish participants in research joint ventures supported by the EU Framework Programme during the period...

Rinderpest was once one of the world’s most feared diseases of livestock, responsible for the deaths of millions of livestock. However, rinderpest is just one of two diseases that has been successfully eradicated globally. A major gap in the history of rinderpest concerns the socio-economic...

Underinvestment in agricultural research remains rife across Southeast Asia, despite the remaining importance of the subregion’s agricultural sector and ample evidence of agricultural technology impact to date. To help identify specific areas where additional investment is most needed, this...

We use experimental data collected in 8 African countries to investigate whether a decentralized approach can promote the adoption of agricultural innovations. This participatory model is based on the creation of so-called ‘innovation platforms’ where local stakeholders meet and seek to...

This paper summarizes environmental considerations that the Bank should take into account in preparing its new country strategy with Bolivia (2011-2015). Some of these are already contemplated to a certain extent in the existing strategy. Following this introductory section, which briefly...

This discussion paper starts with a brief summary of several important existing Bank-supported environment-related interventions. It is followed by a review of pending issues associated with some of these initiatives, specifically those associated with possible new Bank-financed infrastructure...

It has become increasingly evident that local water depletion and pollution are often closely tied to the structure of the global economy. It has been estimated that 20% of the water consumption and pollution in the world relates to the production of export goods. This study analyzes how French...

Equal opportunities for regions´ development is one of objectives of Czech Republic´s and European Union´s regional policy in order to guarantee that their demographic, environmental and economic potential is used to the utmost degree. With the lowering of disparities of regions and...

A number of proposals have been put forth regarding the proper way to model the societal impact of fatal accidents. Most of these proposals are based on some form of utility function asserting that the social cost (or disutility) of N lives lost in a single accident is a function of N^\alpha. A...