Technology and innovation play an increasingly important role in the economic development of both developed and developing countries. We investigate how policy and market factors influence firms’ (or other potential innovators’) decisions on innovation or imitation by developing a conceptual...

We use the concept of the product space to analyze the key features of the transformation process in Africa with a focus on the agricultural sector. Between 1962 and 2008, we find that both specialization and diversification occur for the overall economy and across sectors. Our findings also...

Exogenous, unobserved factors often confound the effects of alliance networks. More capable farmers might be less likely to exit and more likely to have a large number of alliances. In this case the negative correlation between alliance network size and exit likelihood is due to the unobserved...

Using an extensive household-level data set collected in Tanzania, this paper investigates the determinants of the technological adoption of rice cultivation and of paddy yield. We especially focus on the impact of credit and training on the adoption of modern technologies. Based on empirical...

The recent adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs, namely mobile phones and radios) in rural areas of Sub- Saharan Africa has brought new evidence that an updated and reliable flow of information can have direct benefits for farmers' welfare. However, if correct market...

Manufacturing is intensive in the use of reproducible factors and exhibits greater technological dynamism than primary production. As such its growth is central to long-run development in low-income countries. Sub-Saharan African countries are latecomers to industrialization, and barriers to...

Investigating the determinants of economic growth remains a long research tradition in the economic growth literature. Most studies in this literature have tried to link economic growth and different economic factors using either neoclassical growth theories or endogenous growth approaches....

In the US, The Tobacco Transition Payment Program, also called the "tobacco buy-out," helps tobacco quota holders and producers transition to the free market. In China, the transaction of Land Use Rights providing farmers’ ability to buy or sell Land Use Rights has been seriously considered by...