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Increased globalization of the world's economies, along with accelerated technological changes are transforming research and development (R&D) activities around the world. The purpose of this paper is to study the technology development in China, particularly in the light of the globalization of R&D activities.

The study is based on a detailed analysis of all US patents granted between 1979 and 2007 in which at least one inventor was a resident of China. US patents have been used as a surrogate measure of technology development and a patent developed with a resident Chinese inventor has been assumed to have been developed in China.

The paper identifies four phases of technical development in China: growth rate of patenting, extent of inventor collaboration, ownership pattern, concentration on technology trajectory and changing role of MNCs characterize each phase. While along the relatively new electrical and ICT technology trajectories, Chinese entities have benefited from the pioneering lead of foreign entities, along the traditional mechanical and chemical trajectories, foreign entities have followed the early work of Chinese entities.

Limitations of the study include the validity of using US patents as the sole measure of technology development. Other measures of technology development may be necessary to validate the findings reported here.

The study provides a rich source of information about different aspects of technology development in China and the challenges it faces in its internationalization.

The identification of four distinct phases have highlighted the pioneering role of foreign entities in opening up some technology trajectories as well as the increasing maturity and competence of all‐Chinese researcher teams.

The concept of poverty traps based on a critical threshold that distinguishes transitory from chronic poverty gives rise to a crucial policy distinction between cargo nets and safety nets. While safety nets are designed to prevent the non‐poor and transitorily poor from falling into chronic poverty, cargo nets are meant to help those who fall below the critical threshold to help them climb out of chronic poverty. The study attempts to determine the factors that affect a beneficiary artisan's decision to use the toolkits provided, i.e. to climb up using the cargo net of improved toolkits and become more active economically.

The paper is based on primary data collected from the supply of improved toolkits to rural artisans (SITRA) programme in 2001‐2002. It is performed on the dataset consisting of 6,788 observations (beneficiary artisans). Due to some missing data 700 observations could not be used. Thus, only 6,088 observations are considered for the purpose of the ordered logit analysis.

The paper develops the related concepts of conditional and structural rigidities restraining the movement and studies the role of these rigidities in determining the economic mobility of a beneficiary household when a climbing cargo net is provided. The paper finds that there is strong evidence that governments are confused about the concept of poverty reduction and alleviation strategies. The study reveals that narrower targeting on beneficiaries with lower conditional rigidities is better as they are more likely to use the toolkits and hence increase their income from craftsmanship and so promote both economic growth and poverty reduction.

The study focuses on a specific poverty alleviation programme. The findings are restricted to a special economic group at all India level. Nonetheless, the study highlights that a thorough understanding of the conditional and structural rigidities faced by a beneficiary artisan and how these affect his economic behaviour would be very useful in both designing and implementation of poverty reduction programmes.

This paper will be of value to researchers, policy makers seeking to gain better understanding of targeting. The paper observes that appreciation of significant conditional rigidities are useful while designing programmes – particularly while targeting the beneficiaries – structural rigidities are more important while implementing and monitoring these programs.

The purpose of this paper is to study the internationalization of technology development in India. The internationalization of research and development (R&D) has not been a recent phenomenon. Large multinational companies increased their R&D investment in various host countries during the past years. While the US and the countries in Western Europe have been the traditional locus of R&D, China and India have emerged lately as the destinations for R&D. The changes in geopolitical systems of trade and intellectual property protection couples with the advances in information and communication technology have helped globalize the R&D activities.

The study has used the US patents as a surrogate measure for the technical output from India. The data include all US patents granted between 1992 and 2007 in which at least one inventor was an Indian resident. Studies in the field of economics of technology and in science policy have used patents as a valid measure of R&D output.

The results of this study indicated that there were three phases of technological development in India. Intensity of patenting, role of the different institutions in technology development, and the focus of technology characterize each phase. By examining the co‐inventors, the authors see how the international cooperation among scientists has shaped. While government laboratories under the aegis of the council of scientific and industrial research had a high number of patents, their role has gone through significant shifts among the three phases. The authors also find that the multinational companies from the US have driven the recent growth in Indian patenting and are using more of all‐Indian teams for patentable research. This indicates maturation the skills of technical personnel in India in terms of developing patentable technology. The study also points out the fact that despite the growth of the Indian corporations in the IT sector, they lack in building their own intellectual property. If India wants to maintain the momentum of growth in corporate R&D, it faces the challenge of upgrading its higher education in producing technical graduates at masters and doctoral levels.

Limitations of the study include the validity of patents as the sole measure of innovation and technology development. The process of obtaining patents in the US is expensive and it may deter some organizations to pursue it. Other methods to obtain data on innovative activities may be necessary to validate the findings reported here.

The study provides a rich source of information about the growth of technological fields in India and the challenges that it faces in building its global competitiveness.

The study should be useful in identifying the sectors where India has developed strengths and the areas where it needs to improve. Also, by examining the ownership pattern of the intellectual property in these sectors, one can postulate the technological independence of Indian organizations.

Despite many troublesome aspects in its use, the risk-adjusted discount rate has survived and continues to be extensively used by practitioners. While the appropriate discount rate for projects as risky as the current business operations of the firm can be estimated relatively easily as the firm’s cost of capital, no clear guideline is available for projects with a higher risk profile. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an appropriate risk addendum for such risky projects.

Extending the framework developed by Davies et al. (2012), the perceived risk in a project is captured by focussing on a downside case scenario and estimating its probability and severity. An expression is then developed for the risk addendum (as an addendum to the firm’s cost of capital) that can be used to find the value of a risky project.

The risk addendum is found to depend only on the product of the probability (p) and the severity (d) of the downside case scenario and not on either of them individually It was also found that the risk addendum rises fast for projects with shorter lives and so is the highest for risky projects with short lives.

Managers can use the expression derived to evaluate an appropriate risk addendum for risky projects.

The paper suggests a simple framework to quantify the risk involved in a project and to evaluate an appropriate risk addendum.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the dual effect of demographic changes and emigration of young people on the economic growth of small Caribbean economies and the serious economic challenges arising therefrom.

The paper develops a theoretical model leading to a hypothesis that is later tested on Barbados.

Rising incomes have had very significant demographic changes in Barbados and other small Caribbean economies while proximity to large developed economies have contributed to emigration. Together, these have caused capital outflows from the economies as well as simultaneous shortage of skilled workers and high rates of overall unemployment.

Economic vulnerability of small states needs further detailed study.

One implication for the small Caribbean economies is to restructure their labour market through sustained skill development programmes so as to reduce the skill gap between the demand and supply of specific skills.

Although demographic shifts and their effects are widely studied, this paper highlights the special vulnerability of the small Caribbean economies to lower fertility, ageing and emigration.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model to explore the economic consequences of an exogenous skill‐biased technological change.

The paper develops a theoretical model based on assumptions and conditions that replicate those of a government‐sponsored poverty reduction programme in India.

The paper finds that, under certain stated conditions, wage inequality between artisans with improved toolkits and those without is likely to increase, while, under a different set of conditions, this is likely to decrease.

Actual wage inequality implications of specific exogenous skill‐biased technological changes need to be studied to take the theoretical model further.

One major implication is that, when government help is provided by way of an exogenous skill‐biased technological change to a fraction of workers, it may have the unintended consequence of increasing wage inequality between the beneficiary and the non‐beneficiary workers. In extreme cases, it may even lower the equilibrium wages of the non‐beneficiary workers.

The paper brings out the critical role of efficiency units of workers with skill‐biased technology (artisans with improved toolkits) and those without these in determining the wage inequality between these categories of workers (artisans) based on a theoretical model of the trajectory along which the rural economy moves.

During past ten years China and India have emerged as the favorite destination for R&D investment. In this paper a comparative evaluation of the process of technology development in China and India is carried out. The objective is to identify the rate of growth of technology and the patterns of development in different technology sectors.

The analysis is based on the tangible, measurable and recorded output of the technology development process – namely grant of patents. The authors have used US patents as the surrogate measure for the technological output between 1992 to 2007. The authors obtained data on inventor's background, ownership pattern of the patents, as well as technology sectors and descriptive statistics are used to compare the trends between the two countries.

The paper finds that both China and India have achieved very high growth rates in patents granted with some resident research between 1992 and 2007. Both have a high percentage of foreign‐owned and low percentage of joint ownership of patents. Also, a clear polarization in the composition of research teams is detected in both China and India in that international researcher teams have largely been used only for foreign and jointly owned patents. The authors find that corporations have become much more active in recent years in patenting and multi national companies have led the local companies in patent development across many sectors. The authors also detect some significant differences in the Chinese and Indian pursuit of patent development. About 30 to 35 percent of all patents developed in China are design patents – the rest being utility patents. For India almost all such patents – more than 95 percent – are utility patents. The authors find a clear dominance along the mechanical trajectory among the patents developed in China, while for India a similar dominance is along the chemical trajectory that includes pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Another interesting finding is the growing share of ICT patents in both China and India, particularly in the last few years China has emerged ahead of India in terms of its patent development as well as in the internationalization of its patent development as reflected in the ownership of patents developed. However, even for foreign patents developed in these countries, researcher collaboration is showing a downward trend.

This paper carries out a comparative evaluation of the process of technology development in China and India. The analysis is based on the tangible, measurable and recorded output of the technology development process – namely grant of patents. The paper uses US patents as the surrogate measure for the technological output from China and India.

The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the primacy of adequate human capital for successful completion of infrastructure projects in developing countries.

A case study approach is used and three Caribbean infrastructure projects analyzed using a common framework to identify links between project success and availability of adequate human capital.

Explains how the scarcity of human capital at executive and managerial levels may have disastrous consequences for successful project completion, particularly in developing countries.

Developing countries like those of the Caribbean that have done well in human development rankings can still suffer from scarcity of human capital.

The funding agencies need to emphasize the estimation, provisioning and development of human capital for funded projects and ensure the continued availability of the same until project completion as much as they do for physical and economic capital.

The paper brings out the critical role of human capital, which is quite often scarce in developing countries but is needed to use the Project Management body of knowledge for successful completion of projects.