Incentives and uncertainty: an empirical analysis of the impact of demand on innovation

demand, product innovation, process innovation

The impact of culture, religion, and ethnicity on the adoption of fertilisers in rural Ethiopia

AbstractThis paper analyses culture as a determinant of technology adoption in a developing country. While the literature discusses the influence of culture upon economic growth, little attention has been paid to the mechanisms at the micro level. Therefore, we postulate that culture plays a crucial role in hindering or fostering the diffusion of innovation, a key trigger of the engine of growth. This empirical study uses the Ethiopia Rural Household Survey to disentangle between individual cultural traits, namely, ethnicity and religion, and the cultural homogeneity of the environment as co-determinants of fertiliser adoption. To examine our hypotheses, we apply a multivariate survival model for clustered and correlated observations to account for time and location effects. The results reveal significant differences in the probability of adopting fertiliser among cultural groups. Moreover, habits and social norms, proxied by ethnicity, provide a better explanation for the role of culture, than religious beliefs, as usually posited in the literature. Also, the cultural environment turns out tobe a decisive trigger. The probability of adoption is higher in rural societies with a homogeneous ethnic environment but distinct religious variety

IOSHEX Interoperability With Space Rider: A New IOS Perspective

IOSHEX is an orbital module developed by SAB Launch Services and equipped with specific robotic technologies that leverage on the existing SSMS Dispenser basic module (the Hexagon). The SSMS is the payload dispenser for VEGA and VEGA-C developed by SAB, with the purpose to optimize multiple small satellite missions on VEGA and VEGA-C. IOSHEX will enable to perform IOS operations as part of the service provided by the launcher. To offer an enhanced service, SAB is working together with ESA to have a system able to interoperate with Space Rider, the new reusable in-orbit servicing and reeentry automated platform developed by ESA, and foster a European in orbit servicing ecosystem. In the development of such a spacecraft, many are the technological innovations that present a challenge. New technologies in the field of propulsion, AOCS, GNC and robotics are being developed along with the system