In an attempt to improve the quality of educational research, the US Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences has provided funding for 65 randomized controlled trials of educational interventions. We argue that this research methodology is more effective in providing guidance to...

This paper attempts to at least partially redress a paucity of current literature on the joint analysis of inter and intra firm diffusion of innovations within as well as across countries. In particular, by using two data sets derived from independent country-specific surveys, it undertakes an...

The placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical trial (RCT) holds unique advantages for evaluating medical technologies, and figures prominently in clinical drug investigations. However, medicine, like other social sectors, has experienced a movement toward evidence-based practice and...

Technology involving genetic modification of crops has the potential to make a contribution to rural poverty reduction in many developing countries. Thus far, insecticide-producing 'Bt' varieties of cotton have been the main GM crops under cultivation in developing nations. Several studies have...

The identification of age, cohort (vintage), and period (year) effects in a panel of individuals or other units is an old problem in the social sciences, but one that has not been much studied in the context of measuring researcher productivity. In the context of a semi-parametric model of...

This article explores the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) and of its individual components as factors of economic development. An augmented production function is employed to estimate the total ICT effect on labor productivity growth as well as the impact exerted by its...

This article uses the music industry to demonstrate a model of technological change that explains the sources and timing of technological discontinuities and dominant designs. The process by which firms translate customer needs into products can be represented in terms of an interaction between...

Importation of drugs into the US may soon become legal. Since prices of drugs are lower in most other countries than they are in the US, importation would result in a decline in US drug prices. The purpose of this paper is to assess the consequences of importation for new drug development....

This paper examines the effect of three major national innovation policies (patent protection, research and development (R&D) tax incentives, and government funding of business R&D) on business R&D spending. Unlike previous work, we also consider the effect of openness to international trade. We...

The identification of innovation in service firms is problematic since there is no consensus of opinion on its conceptualization. Recent papers suggest both distinctive features of innovation in services and distinctive types of service innovation. This article reviews and evaluates these...