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. 相似文献
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) seeks to deepen economic integration among its members through the SADC free trade area that came into effect in January 2008. The thrust for a progressive reduction of tariff and no-tariff barriers, which the market integration model emphasises, has serious implications for the impact of transport and communication systems on economic integration and development within SADC.
Transport and communications systems have an important bearing on economic integration and development because they can be significant non-tariff barriers. The SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology is the instrument through which transport and communications constraints are to be addressed. Through this protocol, some institutions have been established and others proposed to ensure that projects designed to deepen economic integration and development are implemented effectively.
The neo-functional integration approach is a relevant theoretical framework for analysing transport and communications issues and for implementing joint sectoral projects in areas that impact on overcoming development-related deficiencies in production and infrastructure. Transport and communications fall in this category of projects and the SADC region has benefited from functional co-operation in this sector.
As integration proceeds, polarisation of industries could occur, raising concerns about the distributional effects of economic integration as this affects development. However, polarisation is not inevitable: it depends on transport costs. This might seriously address transport and communications constraints because, if these are greatly reduced and eventually removed, weaker SADC countries need not lose industries to the core with the SADC Free Trade Area in place. 相似文献