Why does the Engel method work? Food demand, economies of size and household survey methods

Estimates of household size economies are needed for the analysis of poverty and inequality. This paper shows that Engel estimates of size economies are large when household expenditures are obtained by respondent recall but small when expenditures are obtained by daily recording in diaries. Expenditure estimates from recall surveys appear to have measurement errors correlated with household size. As well as demonstrating the fragility of Engel estimates of size economies, these results help resolve a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson (1998) about differences between rich and poor countries in the effect of household size on food demand

Prediction of Emerging Technologies Based on Analysis of the U.S. Patent Citation Network

The network of patents connected by citations is an evolving graph, which provides a representation of the innovation process. A patent citing another implies that the cited patent reflects a piece of previously existing knowledge that the citing patent builds upon. A methodology presented here (i) identifies actual clusters of patents: i.e. technological branches, and (ii) gives predictions about the temporal changes of the structure of the clusters. A predictor, called the {citation vector}, is defined for characterizing technological development to show how a patent cited by other patents belongs to various industrial fields. The clustering technique adopted is able to detect the new emerging recombinations, and predicts emerging new technology clusters. The predictive ability of our new method is illustrated on the example of USPTO subcategory 11, Agriculture, Food, Textiles. A cluster of patents is determined based on citation data up to 1991, which shows significant overlap of the class 442 formed at the beginning of 1997. These new tools of predictive analytics could support policy decision making processes in science and technology, and help formulate recommendations for action

Business development in renewable energy

This paper discusses how to foster development of renewable energy business. Factors that impede or enhance renewable energy in the EU 27 member states in the period 1998–2008 are analyzed. Nine factors are considered: population density, production output and energy sector output to indicate market conditions, public total expenditures, subsidies and environmental protection expenditures to indicate institutional conditions, R&D, share of students in population and venture capital to indicate firm’s resources. Scarce space for business development and vested energy interests are the main impediments. R&D and venture capital are main drivers. The US and EU support for R&D and venture capital in renewable energy are compared. The US support is larger and mainly based on R&D grants. It has generated large, innovative enterprises. The EU support is mainly based on price guarantees for renewable energy delivery to grid. It has generated many enterprises. Building capabilities through stakeholders’ networks in early phase of business development and clusters in the later phase is recommended

International patent families: from application strategies to statistical indicators

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of international patent families, including their domestic component. We exploit a relatively under-studied feature of patent families, namely the number of patents covering the same invention within a given jurisdiction. Using this information, we highlight common patterns in the structure of international patent families, which reflect both the patenting strategies of innovators and the peculiarities of the different patent systems. While the literature has extensively used family size, i.e. the number of countries in which a given invention is protected, as a measure of patent value, our results suggest that the number of patent filings in the priority country within a patent family as well as the timespan between the first and last fillings within a family are other insightful indicators of the value of patented innovations

Bundling of Services and Household Welfare in Developing Countries Using Panel Data: The Case of Peru

Using panel data for Peru for the period 1994-2000, we find that when households receive two or more services jointly, the welfare increases of the household, as measured by changes in consumption, are larger than when services are provided separately. Such an increase appears to be more than proportional, as F-tests on the coefficients of the corresponding regressors confirm. Thus, we find that bundling of services may help realize welfare effects

The Impact of Symbolic and Substantive Actions on Environmental Legitimacy

Drawing on institutional theory and insights from stakeholder theory and impression management, we empirically analyze the impact of both environmental symbolic polices (participation in voluntary environmental programs, green trademarks, environmental-dedicated board committees, environmental pay policies and community communication) and substantive actions (environmental patents and pollution prevention practices) on environmental legitimacy. We show that (1) symbolic actions have a weaker positive effect on legitimacy than substantive actions, (2) that the impact of symbolic actions is greater when they are combined with substantive actions, (3) that this impact is only short-term while substantive actions have both short- and long-term effects

Mechanical Properties of Plant Underground Storage Organs and Implications for Dietary Models of Early Hominins

The diet of early human ancestors has received renewed theoretical interest since the discovery of elevated d13C values in the enamel of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus. As a result, the hominin diet is hypothesized to have included C4 grass or the tissues of animals which themselves consumed C4 grass. On mechanical grounds, such a diet is incompatible with the dental morphology and dental microwear of early hominins. Most inferences, particularly for Paranthropus, favor a diet of hard or mechanically resistant foods. This discrepancy has invigorated the longstanding hypothesis that hominins consumed plant underground storage organs (USOs). Plant USOs are attractive candidate foods because many bulbous grasses and cormous sedges use C4 photosynthesis. Yet mechanical data for USOs—or any putative hominin food—are scarcely known. To fill this empirical void we measured the mechanical properties of USOs from 98 plant species from across sub-Saharan Africa. We found that rhizomes were the most resistant to deformation and fracture, followed by tubers, corms, and bulbs. An important result of this study is that corms exhibited low toughness values (mean = 265.0 J m-2) and relatively high Young’s modulus values (mean = 4.9 MPa). This combination of properties fits many descriptions of the hominin diet as consisting of hard-brittle objects. When compared to corms, bulbs are tougher (mean = 325.0 J m-2) and less stiff (mean = 2.5 MPa). Again, this combination of traits resembles dietary inferences, especially for Australopithecus, which is predicted to have consumed soft-tough foods. Lastly, we observed the roasting behavior of Hadza hunter-gatherers and measured the effects of roasting on the toughness on undomesticated tubers. Our results support assumptions that roasting lessens the work of mastication, and, by inference, the cost of digestion. Together these findings provide the first mechanical basis for discussing the adaptive advantages of roasting tubers and the plausibility of USOs in the diet of early hominins

Financing micro-entrepreneurs for poverty alleviation: a performance analysis of microfinance services offered by BRAC, ASA, and Proshika from Bangladesh

Microfinance services have emerged as an effective tool for financing microentrepreneurs to alleviate poverty. Since the 1970s, development theorists have considered non-governmental microfinance institutions (MFIs) as the leading practitioners of sustainable development through financing micro-entrepreneurial activities. This study evaluates the impact of micro-finance services provided by MFIs on poverty alleviation. In this vein, we examine whether microfinance services contribute to poverty alleviation, and also identify bottlenecks in micro-finance programs and operations. The results indicate that the micro-loans have a statistically significant positive impact on the poverty alleviation index and consequently improve the living standard of borrowers by increasing their level of income