Search

This paper reviews the history of the federal regulatory oversight of plant agricultural biotechnology in the USA, focusing on the scientific and political forces moulding the continually evolving regulatory structure in place today. Unlike most other jurisdictions, the USA decided to adapt pre-existing legislation to encompass products of biotechnology. In so doing, it established an overarching committee (Office of Science and Technology Policy) to study and distribute various regulatory responsibilities amongst relevant agencies: the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Agriculture. This paper reviews the history and procedures of each agency in the execution of its regulatory duties and investigates the advantages and disadvantages of the US regulatory strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the controversial issue of regional development incentives. Although extensive research has been conducted, a review of the literature gives an inconclusive answer to whether economic incentives are effective. Why do researchers arrive at different conclusions, even after analysing the same programmes? Among the problems that we find, for example, is the fact that for some researchers ‘effective’ means the significant location of new firms in targeted areas, while for others the creation of jobs regardless of whether new firms are arriving in a significant fashion. Furthermore, as we elaborate, the selection of an econometric model will have a significant impact on expected results. Different models, with different limitations, will lead researchers to evaluate the same incentive programme but arrive at different conclusions regarding its effectiveness. The contribution of the paper is to inform policymakers about the potential opportunities and pitfalls when designing incentive strategies. This is particularly relevant, given that both the US and Europe have been promoting incentives as a tool for regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four essentially independent conceptions of the population problem are visible in current discussions. One is derived from macroeconomics, one from microeconomics, one from the health sciences, and one from ethical concerns about the just relation between man and nature. After describing these conceptions, this paper addresses the population problem principally using the economic definitions. It cites five reasons why discussions of the economic hazards posed by population growth have become markedly less alarmist in the past decade. Failures of highly quantified input-output models to account for human progress are emphasized. The paper presents examples of how technical demography has shed light on the dimensions of and solutions to the population problem and concludes with a brief discussion of contemporary population problems in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of several policy distortions, including import-substitution industrialization, widespread government intervention, and both domestic and international competitive barriers, there has been a general presumption that Latin America has been much less productive than the leading economies in the last decades. In this paper we show, however, that until the late 1970s Latin American countries had high productivity levels relative to the United States. It is only after the late 1970s that we observe a fast decrease of relative total factor productivity (TFP) in Latin America. We also show that the inclusion of human capital in the production function makes a crucial difference in the TFP calculations for Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]