R&D, Foreign Technology and Technical Efficiency in Developing Countries

This study investigates the relationship between firms’ innovation activities and efficiency in manufacturing firms in developing countries. We examine whether innovation activities including internal research and development (R&D) and adoption of foreign technology have differential effects on technical efficiency. We hypothesize that the relation between internal R&D and technical efficiency is positive; the relation between adoption of foreign technology and technical efficiency is negative and lastly, internal R&D in combination with the adoption of foreign technology have a positive effect on technical efficiency. We use cross-sectional firm level survey data from the 2013 World Bank Enterprise Survey and the linked 2014 Innovation Follow-up Survey for examining the effect of innovation activities on firms’ technical efficiency. We test our hypothesis using cross-sectional stochastic frontier analysis. We find that internal R&D has a negative and significant effect on technical efficiency. Adoption of foreign technology on the other hand does not have a significant effect on technical efficiency. Nevertheless, the combination of internal R&D and adoption of foreign technology has a negative and significant effect on technical efficiency. We conclude that internal R&D may have dynamic effects on technical efficiency. Furthermore, efficiency may be observed in firms conducting internal R&D but results in relative inefficiency for firms not conducting R&D giving rise to overall inefficiency in the manufacturing industry. Lastly, low rates of human capital hamper R&D activity and the adoption of foreign technology in manufacturing firms in developing countries

Institutions, Resources and Innovation in Developng Countries:A Firm Level Approach

This study examines how firm-level resources interact with regional institutional quality to explain innovation in developing countries. We hypothesize that the institutional environment within which the firm operates moderates the effect of firm-level resources on innovative output. We examine the moderating role of institutions with regards to the transformation of firm-level resources including internal research and development, employee level of education and quality certification into innovative output using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-up Survey that includes the innovation module for the years 2010 through 2012. We test our hypotheses using a multilevel logistic model. We find that the effects of firm-level resources vary depending on the institutional environment and that regional institutional quality positively moderates the effects of the firm-level resources. The positive effects of internal research and development on innovative output are substantially reinforced by regional institutional quality

Elephants Mitigate the Effects of Cattle on Wildlife and Other Ecosystem Traits: Experimental Evidence

On rangelands worldwide, cattle interact with many ecosystem components, most obviously with soils, plants, and other large herbivores. Since 1995, we have been manipulating the presence of cattle, mesoherbivores, and megaherbivores (elephants and giraffes) in a series of eighteen 4-ha (10-acre) plots at the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment. We have demonstrated a wide array of cattle effects on this savanna rangeland, including their reduction of grass cover, wildlife use, and soil nitrogen and phosphorus pools, but their increase of primary productivity and termite abundance. Strikingly, we demonstrate that the presence of mega-herbivores (elephants, mainly) reduces the sizes of these cattle. We provide further experimental evidence that this may be because the elephants are reducing the most desirable (N-rich) forage, causing cattle to slow their extraction of (low-N) grasses, while simultaneously reducing tree cover

Wild and domestic savanna herbivores increase smaller vertebrate diversity, but less than additively

Cattle and other livestock graze more than a quarter of the world's terrestrial area and are widely regarded to be drivers of global biodiversity declines. Studies often compare the effects of livestock presence/absence but, to our knowledge, no studies have tested for interactive effects between large wild herbivores and livestock at varying stocking rates on small-bodied wild vertebrates. We investigated the effects of cattle stocking rates (none/moderate/high) on the diversity of wildlife 0.05–1,000 kg using camera traps at a long-term exclosure experiment within a semi-arid savanna ecosystem in central Kenya. In addition, by selectively excluding wild ‘mesoherbivores’ (50–1,000 kg) and ‘megaherbivores’ (>1,000 kg; elephant and giraffe), we tested whether the presence of these two wild herbivore guilds (collectively, ‘larger wild herbivores’) mediates the effect of cattle stocking rate on habitat use and diversity of ‘smaller wildlife’ (mammals ranging between 10 and 70 cm shoulder height and birds). Our results show that cattle enhance alpha diversity of smaller wildlife (with or without larger wild herbivore presence) and of all wildlife 0.05–1,000 kg (with or without megaherbivore presence), by altering vegetation structure. However, for smaller wildlife, this effect is less pronounced in the presence of larger wild herbivores, which also shorten grass. In the absence of cattle, mesoherbivore-accessible sites showed higher alpha diversity of smaller wildlife than sites excluding mesoherbivores. Smaller wildlife habitat use was increased by high cattle stocking rates and wild mesoherbivores more in the presence of the other. Synthesis and applications. Our findings imply that grazing, whether by livestock or wildlife, can enhance local savanna wildlife diversity. The biodiversity benefits of localised increases in herbivory are likely to be due to shortened grass and associated visibility improvements (for predator avoidance/foraging). This suggests that land managers can increase local biodiversity by shortening grass, with wild or domestic herbivores (or both), at least in patches within a taller grass matrix

Business constraints and growth potential of micro and small manufacturing enterprises in Uganda

Ugandan micro and small enterprises (MSEs) still perform poorly. Studies associating poor performance of manufacturers with lack of finance and low investment ignore micro enterprises. Those focusing on MSEs are either exploratory in nature or employ a descriptive analysis, which cannot show the extent to which business constraints explain the performance of MSEs. Thus, this paper tries to examine the extent to which the growth of MSEs is associated with business constraints while controlling for owners’ attributes and firms’ characteristics. The results reveal that MSEs’ growth potential is negatively associated with limited access to productive resources (finance and business development services), high taxes and lack of market access

Moving in the anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission

LOTVS: a global collection of permanent vegetation plots

Analysing temporal patterns in plant communities is extremely important to quantify the extent and the consequences of ecological changes, especially considering the current biodiversity crisis. Long-term data collected through the regular sampling of permanent plots represent the most accurate resource to study ecological succession, analyse the stability of a community over time and understand the mechanisms driving vegetation change. We hereby present the LOng-Term Vegetation Sampling (LOTVS) initiative, a global collection of vegetation time-series derived from the regular monitoring of plant species in permanent plots. With 79 data sets from five continents and 7,789 vegetation time-series monitored for at least 6 years and mostly on an annual basis, LOTVS possibly represents the largest collection of temporally fine-grained vegetation time-series derived from permanent plots and made accessible to the research community. As such, it has an outstanding potential to support innovative research in the fields of vegetation science, plant ecology and temporal ecology

The bii4africa dataset of faunal and floral population intactness estimates across Africa’s major land uses

Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented in global biodiversity datasets, particularly regarding the impact of land use on species’ population abundances. Drawing on recent advances in expert elicitation to ensure data consistency, 200 experts were convened using a modified-Delphi process to estimate ‘intactness scores’: the remaining proportion of an ‘intact’ reference population of a species group in a particular land use, on a scale from 0 (no remaining individuals) to 1 (same abundance as the reference) and, in rare cases, to 2 (populations that thrive in human-modified landscapes). The resulting bii4africa dataset contains intactness scores representing terrestrial vertebrates (tetrapods: ±5,400 amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) and vascular plants (±45,000 forbs, graminoids, trees, shrubs) in sub-Saharan Africa across the region’s major land uses (urban, cropland, rangeland, plantation, protected, etc.) and intensities (e.g., large-scale vs smallholder cropland). This dataset was co-produced as part of the Biodiversity Intactness Index for Africa Project. Additional uses include assessing ecosystem condition; rectifying geographic/ taxonomic biases in global biodiversity indicators and maps; and informing the Red List of Ecosystems

Innovation and exporting: the case of mediation effects in Sub-Saharan Africa

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