Health Biotechnology Innovation for Social Sustainability -A Perspective from China

China is not only becoming a significant player in the production of high-tech products, but also an increasingly important contributor of ideas and influence in the global knowledge economy. This paper identifies the promises and the pathologies of the biotech innovation system from the perspective of social sustainability in China, looking at the governance of the system and beyond. Based on The STEPS Centre’s ‘Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto’, a ‘3D’ approach has been adopted, bringing together social, technological and policy dynamics, and focusing on the directions of biotechnological innovation, the distribution of its benefits, costs and risks and the diversity of innovations evolving within it and alongside it

Who Bears the Burden and Who Receives the Gain? - The Case of GWRDC R&D Investments in the Australian Grape and Wine Industry

In 2001, $13 million were invested in various grape and wine R&D programs via the Australian Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation. Half of the funds come from compulsory levies from grape-growers and winemakers, and the other half from Commonwealth government matching grants. These funds are then allocated to research projects across broad areas such as grape production R&D, wine production R&D and grape and wine quality R&D. The benefit of R&D in one sector of an industry will be distributed across the production and consumption chain. On the other hand, when a levy is charged nominally to one producer group, the real burden of the cost will also be shared among all involved producer and consumer groups. In the case of the Australian grape and wine R&D investments, the net impact will be determined by the distribution of the benefits and costs across grape-growers, winemakers, marketers and retailers, and domestic and overseas consumers. In an ideal situation, if every dollar is invested at exactly the point where it is collected, the percentage distributions of costs and returns coincide. Under this system, presuming R&D projects are successful, all groups will gain in dollar terms, and they will receive benefits in exactly the same proportions as how the burdens of the R&D costs are shared. However, the distributions of costs and benefits will diverge if a levy collected at one point of the production is used to fund research at a different point of the chain. Indeed, in practice, producers often pool levies together to fund R&D programs at places that are not necessarily where the funds are raised. A significant amount of public funds are also invested in Australian agricultural industries that substantially involve foreign processors and consumers. In these situations it is important to note the real incidence of both costs and benefits. The objective of the paper is to examine the distributions of both costs and returns from the Australian grape and wine R&D investments, using results from a multi-sectoral equilibrium displacement model of the industry. The real shares of total R&D costs are estimated and compared with the nominal shares. Divergence between the distributions of costs and benefits is also studied for the three major areas of R&D. Grape-growers, winemakers and overseas consumers are shown to receive bigger proportions of the gains than their proportions of costs, but the Government and other domestic parties as a group bear a much higher proportion of costs than returns. The paper discusses implications of the results to the equity issue between premium and non-premium wine producers, the free-rider issue for overseas consumers, and the issue of justifying government funding of grape and wine R&D.Economics of R&D, R&D policies, incidence of levies, wine, equilibrium displacement modelling.

The Economic Role of Nigeria’s Subsistence Agriculture in the Transition Process: Implications for Rural Development

This study examined the role of subsistence-oriented agriculture in Nigeria in the 1990s to 2000s. The start out by discussing the diverging economic effects of the growth of subsistence agriculture in Nigeria since the transition process started. The quantitative analysis of this sector’s role is carried out by means of an applied Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model applying a 1994 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) as base year data. The innovation of the article is to disaggregate primary agricultural production not by products but by farm types, which enables us to distinguish their institutional and economic characteristics. The study simulates two Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the government. The results of the post SAP period highlight that Nigeria’s subsistence agriculture was an important shock absorber against further agricultural output declines during transition. A simulation, which looks into the effects of a devaluation of the Nigeria Naira, shows that the financial crisis should have increased the relative competitiveness particularly of large-scale crop farms versus small-scale farms. The reforms of successive governments show that efficiency enhancing institutional change would benefit both large-scale and small-scale farms. However, within small-scale agriculture, a shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture would take place.Subsistence agriculture, CGE model, Exchange rate, Institutional Development, Structural Constraints, Nigeria, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

From Divergence to Convergence: Re-evaluating the History Behind China's Economic Boom

China's long-term economic dynamics pose a formidable challenge to economic historians. The Qing Empire (1644-1911), the world's largest national economy prior to the 19th century, experienced a tripling of population during the 17th and 18th centuries with no signs of diminishing per capita income. In some regions, the standard of living may have matched levels recorded in advanced regions of Western Europe. However, with the Industrial Revolution a vast gap emerged between newly rich industrial nations and China's lagging economy. Only with an unprecedented growth spurt beginning in the late 1970s has the gap separating China from the global leaders been substantially diminished, and China regained its former standing among the world's largest economies. This essay develops an integrated framework for understanding this entire history, including both the long period of divergence and the more recent convergent trend. The analysis sets out to explain how deeply embedded political and economic institutions that had contributed to a long process of extensive growth subsequently prevented China from capturing the benefits associated with new technologies and information arising from the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, the gradual erosion of these historic constraints and of new obstacles created by socialist planning eventually opened the door to China's current boom. Our analysis links China's recent economic development to important elements of its past, while using the success of the last three decades to provide fresh perspectives on the critical obstacles undermining earlier modernization efforts, and their removal over the last century and a half.

The impacts of international aid on the energy security of small island developing states (SIDS)

Tuvalu is a small island developing state (SID) with least developed country (LDC) status. The island has gained international attention due to the threat to its land territory as a result of climate change and subsequent sea-level rises. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Copenhagen in December 2009, Tuvalu was described as being at serious risk of becoming the first state to become uninhabitable due to the impacts of climate change. The majority of climate change scientists agree that a key driver of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, predominantly for energy production. Energy security is multifaceted and connections can be drawn between the energy demands of the wealthier, industrialised states and the less developed states that are experiencing the detrimental impacts of the meeting of these demands. For Tuvalu, the lack of access to adequate, affordable, reliable, safe and environmentally benign energy is a severe development constraint. Currently, Tuvalu is close to being a totally oil dependent economy (83% of primary energy), whose energy security is dependent upon foreign aid to ensure its ability to pay international oil companies. Costs of all imported goods are exacerbated by its geographical isolation. This paper analyses the impact of international aid on energy security in Tuvalu and comments on the Tuvaluan Government’s commitment to 100% renewable energy – “being carbon neutral” – by 2020. Although this is a commendable aspiration it is clear that even if Tuvalu were to end reliance on fossil fuels it would still be at risk of disastrous inundation unless the industrialised states radically reduce their own dependency on such fuels and dramatically reduce the global levels of greenhouse gas emissions

Migration and Technological Change in Rural Households: Complements or Substitutes?

In this paper we study the interrelationship between determinants of migration, conceived as a family strategy, and the potential impact of having a migrant household member on people left behind. Labour migration is often related to poverty but given its lumpy-investment nature, poverty may constitute a motivation to migrate as well as a constraint to do it. We use cross-sectional household data from two rural regions of Bangladesh to test whether migration is a form of income diversification strategy that significantly influences the risk-taking behaviour of source farm households in agricultural activities. We account for heterogeneity of migration constraints differentiating between domestic (temporary and permanent) and international moving destinations. We find that richer and large-holder households are more likely to participate in costly high-return migration (i.e. international migration) and employ modern technologies, thereby achieving higher productivity. Poorer households, on the other hand, are not able to overcome entry costs of moving abroad and fall back on migration with low entry costs, and low returns (i.e. domestic migration), which does not help them to achieve production enhancements and may lock them into persistent poverty. We interpret our results as evidence that if migration is a profitable household activity, entry constraints may hinder the access to it and its effectiveness as income diversification strategy.