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Modern societies face several structural problems such as transport congestion and greenhouse gas emissions due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. To address these important societal problems and achieve sustainability in the broad sense, major transformations are required, but this poses an enormous challenge given the complexity of the processes involved. Such transformations are called 'transitions' or 'system innovations' and involve changes in a variety of elements, including technology, regulation, user practices and markets, cultural meaning and infrastructure. This book considers two main questions: how do system innovations or transitions come about and how can they be influenced by different actors, in particular by governments. The authors identify the theories which can be used to conceptualise the dynamics of system innovations and discuss the weaknesses in these theories. They also look at the lessons which can be learned from historical examples of transitions, and highlight the instruments and policy tools which can be used to stimulate future system innovations towards sustainability. The expert contributors address these questions using insights from a variety of different disciplines including innovation studies, evolutionary economics, the sociology of technology, environmental analysis and governance studies. The book concludes with an extensive summary of the results and practical suggestions for future research. This important new volume offers an interdisciplinary assessment of how and why system innovations occur. It will engage and inform academics and researchers interested in transitions towards sustainability, and will also be highly relevant for policymakers concerned with environmental issues, structural change and radical innovation.

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of research focused on the processes through which technological capabilities are acquired by countries significantly behind the economic frontier, and the institutions that effectively support the catching up process. This book is a splendid contribution to this literature. The concept of a "sectoral innovation system" is well suited for framing studies of these kinds of questions, and serves well to unify the many interesting empirical studies in the book. Some of those studies are success stories, others of less successful cases. Readers new to this body of research will find this book a great introduction. All readers will learn a lot from it about what is required for and involved in economic development.' Richard R. Nelson, Columbia Earth Institute, US and University of Manchester, UK This book examines in detail the features and dynamics of sectoral systems of innovation and production in developing countries. Processes of rapid growth are usually associated with specific sectors such as automobiles, electronics or software, as well as with the transformation of traditional sectors such as agriculture and food. The book shows, however, that the variations across all these sectors in terms of structure and dynamics is so great that a full understanding of these differences is necessary if innovation is to be encouraged and growth sustained. The expert contributors promote this understanding by drawing upon empirical evidence from a wide range of sectoral systems, from traditional to high technology, and across a number of countries. They explore how these systems change and evolve, highlighting policy lessons to be drawn from the analysis. Case studies include the Brazilian aeronautical, pulp and paper industries, the Korean machine tool sector, motorbike manufacture in Thailand and Vietnam, pharmaceuticals and telecommunication equipment in India, ICT in Taiwan, the biofuels s

For most countries, economic development involves a process of "catching up" with leading countries at the time. This is never achieved solely by physical assets and labor alone: also needed are the accumulation of technological capabilities, educational attainment, entrepreneurship, and the development of the necessary institutional infrastructure. One element of this infrastructure is the regime of intellectual property rights (IPR), particularly patents. Patents may promote innovation and catch up, and they may foster formal technology transfer. Yet they may also prove to be barriers for developing countries that intend to acquire technologies through imitation and reverse engineering. The current move to harmonize the IPR system internationally, such as the TRIPS agreement, may thus have unexpected consequences for developing countries. This book explores these issues through an in depth study of eleven countries ranging from early developers (the USA, Nordic Countries and Japan), and Post World War 2 countries (Korea, Taiwan, Israel) to more recent emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, China, India and Thailand). With contributions from international experts on innovation systems, this book will be an invaluable resource for academics and policymakers in the fields of economic development, innovation studies and intellectual property laws.

Engineering the farm: ethical and social aspects of agricultural biotechnology Britt Bailey, Marc Lappé 3 Resenhas Island Press, 2002 - 202 páginas Engineering the Farm offers a wide-ranging examination of the social and ethical issues surrounding the production and consumption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with leading thinkers and activists taking a broad theoretical approach to the subject. Topics covered include: the historical roots of the anti-biotechnology movement ethical issues involved in introducing genetically altered crops questions of patenting and labeling the "precautionary principle" and its role in the regulation of GMOs effects of genetic modification on the world's food supply ecological concerns and impacts on traditional varieties of domesticated crops potential health effects of GMOsContributors argue that the scope, scale, and size of the present venture in crop modification is so vast and intensive that a thoroughgoing review of agricultural biotechnology must consider its global, moral, cultural, and ecological impacts as well as its effects on individual consumers. Throughout, they argue that more research is needed on genetically modified food and that consumers are entitled to specific information about how food products have been developed.Despite its increasing role in worldwide food production, little has been written about the broader social and ethical implications of GMOs. Engineering the Farm offers a unique approach to the subject for academics, activists, and policymakers involved with questions of environmental policy, ethics, agriculture, environmental health, and related fields.

ARE 242 Spring 2005 Course Syllabus   Gordon Rausser Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-2:00 201 Giannini Hall     Class Date Reading Assignment Tuesday January 18 Rausser, G.C. and R.E. Goodhue. "Public Policy: Its Many Analytical Dimensions," in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, B. Gardner and G. Rausser (eds.). Volume 2, Chapter 39, Elsevier North Holland, 2002.   Thursday January 20 Alston, J.M. and J.S. James. "The Incidence of Agricultural Policy," in Handbook of Agricultural Economics, B. Gardner and G. Rausser (eds.). Volume 2, Chapter 33, Elsevier North Holland, 2002.   Chambers, R.G., "The incidence of agricultural policies," Journal of Public Economics 57, (1995) 317-335.   Floyd, J.E. "The Effects of Farm Price Supports on the Returns to Land and Labor in Agriculture." Journal of Political Economy 73 (1965), p. 148-158.   Tuesday January 25 Baylis, K., G. Rausser, and L. Simon, "Agri-Environmental Program in the United States and European Union," in Agricultural Policy Reform and the WTO: Where Are We Heading?," G. Anania, M.E. Bohman, C.A. Carter, and A.F. McCalla (eds.) Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2004.   Glebe, T.W. "Multifunctionality: How "Green" is the "European Model of Agriculture"? Environmental Economics, Resource Economics and Agricultural Policy Research Group, Discussion Paper 01-2003.   Swinbank, A. "Multifunctionality: A European Euphemism for Protection?" Presented at the FWAG Conference: Multifunctional Agriculture-A European Model, Stoneleigh, UK, November 29, 2001.   Thursday January 27 Hodge, I. "Agri-environmental Relationships and the Choice of Policy Mechanism," The World Economy, 26 (5), May, 2003, 705-725.   Blandford, D. and R.N. Boisvert, "Multifunctional Agriculture-A View from the United States," Plenary paper presented at the 90th EAAE Seminar: Multifunctional Agriculture, Policies and Markets: Understanding the Critical Linkage; Rennes, France, October 28-29, 200

The politics of food Marianne E. Lien, Brigitte Nerlich 1 Resenha Berg Publishers, 2004 - 244 páginas Is shopping for food really a political act? Why is it that, in a world with enough food for everyone, more people than ever go hungry? Why did the French resistance against genetically modified foods become a fight against McDonalds? Why did the foot-and-mouth epidemic in the UK become a problem for consumers? Capable of connecting human bodies to abstract nations, and techno-science to moral concerns, food has become one of the most contested fields of our time. It is high on the political agenda throughout the world. With disease, contamination, famine, hunger and imbalanced food markets all unfortunate realities, a book that interrogates the politics of food is long overdue. From the BSE outbreak in the 1990s through to cultural taboos and the genetic modification of produce and livestock, this timely book raises provocative questions about how we relate to food in the 21st century. Recent food scandals and genetically modified organism controversies have shattered the idea that 'food is food' as we have always known it, and exposed fundamental dilemmas related to risk and control. Taking as its starting point the premise that food is politicized in arenas not commonly thought of as political, The Politics of Food explores issues surrounding the development of global food markets in underdeveloped nations and addresses recent events that have had a profound impact on how consumers feel about what they eat. The epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease that swept through the UK in 2001 spawned a series of questions concerning the real costs of cheap food. What lessons have been learned? And how are food choices linked to the politics of food markets? With globalization, food has increasingly become entangled in webs of political significance. Through ethnographic case studies, this book reveals how food has come to serve a key role in political resistance, grassroots

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"After almost fifteen years in the laboratory and in the test plots, bioengineered crops arrived to the market in the mid-1990s. Adoption was rapid and widespread. In 1996, less than 4 million acres in six countries were planted with bioengineered plants. By 2001, worldwide adoption had expanded to more than 115 million acres." The foretelling of a scientific revolution has persistently raised expectations on the potential of agrobiotechnology, and first-generation agrobiotechnologies have had to confront such expectations in the field and in the market. The Economics and Environmental Impacts of Agbiotech: A Global Perspective explains how well they have fared. It brings together leading authors from around the world who have analyzed the production, environmental and economic impacts of first generation agrobiotechnologies. By pooling experiences across various countries, time periods, crops, and traits this global panel synthesizes a complete picture of the impacts of first generation agrobiotechnologies. The Economics and Environmental Impacts of Agbiotech: A Global Perspective offers this assessment, accounting for the full range of differences in geography, weather, pests, farm structures and institutions that had not been completed previously, and answers these important questions: *What were the factors driving the widespread adoption of these first generation agrobiotechnologies? *What were their economic and environmental impacts? *How were such impacts distributed among innovators and adopters, developed and developing countries, exporters and importers, domestic and foreign consumers? *How were such impacts and their distribution affected by market structures and government policies?

Abstract An historical framework for the analysis of the role of science in public policy is outlined and then applied to analyse a series of institutional reforms that have emerged in 8 separate institutional settings, using as examples the ways in which risks to public health and environmental conditions from food and agriculture are assessed and managed. The discussion explores the extent to which patterns of reform that have been consequent on food safety scares in the late 1990s and early years of this decade have matched the rhetorics in terms of which they were justified, and solved the problems of legitimation that they had highlighted.Article Outline 1. Introduction2. A 3-fold typology of models of science-based policy-making2.1. Technocratic models of science-based policy-making2.2. A 'Decisionist' alternative to the technocratic model3. Critiquing technocratic and Red Book models4. The co-evolutionary model of science and policy-making5. Analytical summary6. Institutional and rhetorical developments since 19967. Operationalising a co-evolutionary approach8. Rhetorical orthodoxies, institutional structures and practices9. 'Two-Body' solutions10. Variable institutional geometries10.1. The EU10.2. France10.3. Germany10.4. Japan11. Reality rarely coincides with Red Book rhetoric or with Codex provisions12. A Codex saga13. Developments in other jurisdictions13.1. Substantive RAPs13.2. Procedural RAPs13.3. Interpretative RAPs14. Summary and conclusionReferences

This report examines factors that have proven helpful in achieving the successful transfer of environmentally sound technologies (EST) to developing countries. It provides an overview of the main issues lying behind trade-related aspects of EST transfers. It then briefly examines the main channels for the transfer of such technologies and the factors which are relevant to technology transfer in general, and to EST transfer in particular. It concludes with a summary of conditions for successful EST transfers which seem to be particularly relevant in the context of trade. These include government regulation and marketbased instruments, trade-related policies and practices, intellectual property rights, capacity, and financing. The report is based on the extensive literature dealing with technology transfer in general, and EST transfer specifically, and on empirical work summarised in a range of case studies