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Understanding what stimulates agribusiness firms to lobby the government and what makes the government responsive to lobbying are the two issues that have been discussed extensively in the debates concerning determinants of biotechnology policy. This paper examines the factors influencing agribusiness firms' lobbying and government response using econometric modeling on a new data set of 160 leading agribusiness firms in the food, feed, chemical, and seed industries in China. The results show that approximately 10% of agribusiness firms lobbied the government about biotechnology policy and regulations and over half of those that lobbied received a verbal or written acknowledgment from government agencies. Seed and feed companies are more likely to engage in lobbying than chemical companies. Owning GM patents not only has a positive impact on firms' lobbying activities, but firms with these patents are more likely to receive a government response to their lobbying efforts. The experience of selling GM products does not significantly influence lobbying activities or response from the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the debate on the role of agriculture in promoting economic growth in a selection of nine developing countries. We investigated the causal linkages between agriculture and gross domestic product growth with the aid of directed acyclic graphs, a recently developed algorithm of inductive causation. The results suggest that while agriculture could be an engine of economic growth, the impact varies across countries. In some cases, we found strong evidence in support of the agriculture-led growth hypothesis. In contrast, the results for some other countries indicate that having a vibrant aggregate economy is a prerequisite for agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]