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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Gicheva, Dora (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); Link, Albert (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the R&D performance of nascent and established technology-based small firms that receive a Phase II R&D award from the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Our empirical analysis is based on a two-stage selection probit model, which is used to estimate the probability of commercialization conditional on the Phase II project having not failed. Our model predicts, and our analysis confirms, that nascent firms are more likely to fail in their SBIR-supported R&D endeavors. Further, we find that nascent firms that do not fail have a higher probability of commercializing their developed technology. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; R&D; commercialization; innovation; SBIR program |
| JEL: | L26 O31 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2015–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2015_007&r=ppm |
| By: | Külpmann, Philipp (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper I analyze a dynamic moral hazard problem in teams with imperfect monitoring in continuous time. In the model, players are working together to achieve a breakthrough in a project while facing a deadline. The effort needed to achieve such a breakthrough is unknown but players have a common prior about its distribution. Each player is only able to observe their own effort, not the effort of others. I characterize the optimal effort path for general distributions of breakthrough efforts and show that, in addition to free-riding, procrastination arises. Furthermore, in this model, procrastination is not a result of irrational behavior and is even present in the welfare-maximizing solution. |
| Keywords: | Procrastination, Public good provision , Moral hazard in teams |
| Date: | 2015–07–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:544&r=ppm |
| By: | Brinkman,Sally Anne; Hasan,Amer; Jung,Haeil; Kinnell,Angela; Pradhan,Menno Prasad |
| Abstract: | This paper uses three waves of longitudinal data to examine the impact of expanding access to preschool services in rural areas of Indonesia on two cohorts of children. One cohort was children aged 4 at the start of the project and was immediately eligible for project-provided services when they began operation in 2009. The other cohort was children aged 1 at the start of the project and became eligible for project-provided services two years later. The paper presents intent-to-treat estimates of impact in the short term (first year of the project) and medium term (three years after the project started), using experimental and quasi-experimental methods. For the cohort of 4-year-olds, while the magnitude of the enrollment impact is similar across children from different backgrounds, the impact on child outcomes is larger for children from more disadvantaged backgrounds in the short and medium terms. However, for this cohort of children, it seems that project-provided playgroups encouraged substitution away from existing kindergartens, suggesting that future interventions should incorporate such possibilities into their design. For the average child in the younger cohort, the project led to improvements in physical health and well-being as well as language and cognitive development. For this cohort, there is little evidence of differential impact. This can be explained by the fact that children who enrolled soon after the centers opened (the older cohort) were generally poorer, compared with children who enrolled later (the younger cohort). This may be because of fee increases in project centers as project funding ended. |
| Keywords: | Housing&Human Habitats,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Educational Sciences,Youth and Government,Primary Education |
| Date: | 2015–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7372&r=ppm |
| By: | Xie, Yang; Zilberman, David |
| Abstract: | We investigate the economic relation between two common approaches to tackling water scarcity and adapting to climate change, namely expanding water-storage capac- ities and improving water-use efficiency. We build, analyze, and extend a simple model for capacity choices of dams, incorporating stochastic, dynamic control of water inventories and efficiency in water use. We show that expanding water-storage capacities could encourage water users to improve water-use efficiency and improving water-use efficiency could increase optimal dam sizes even if water-use efficiency improvement decreases the water demand. This possibility of complementarity is numerically illus- trated by an empirical example of the California State Water Project. Our analysis suggests that, if complementarity holds, resources should be distributed in a balanced way between water-storage expansions and water-use efficiency improvement instead of being invested on one activity while the other being ignored. Implications of this paper are applicable to the storage demand and consumption efficiency of other resources, for example, energy and food. |
| Keywords: | Dam, reservoir, technology adoption, drip irrigation, drought, cost-benefit analysis, stochastic control, climate change, California State Water Project, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Public Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q25, Q15, Q28, Q27, C61, H43, O33, O38, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea15:205439&r=ppm |
| By: | Ramon Sabes-Figuera (European Commission – JRC - IPTS) |
| Abstract: | DREAMING (ElDeRly-friEndly Alarm handling and MonitorING) was a large-scale pilot project that took place in 6 sites over a period of around 4 years, starting in 2008. It aimed to demonstrate new services that could help elderly people live independently in their home environment as long for as their physical and mental conditions allow. The technologies deployed were a combination of health and environmental monitoring systems. The data collected was processed by a decision support system and handled by a call centre. None of the 6 DREAMING sites developed further or integrated the services into the package of health and social care benefits offered to the population covered. Nevertheless, the innovation Unit of Barbastro Health Care Area (Spain) relied on the lessons and experiences from DREAMING and previous projects to design and test the implementation of telemonitoring services with a stronger integrated care approach. |
| Keywords: | SIMPHS, eHealth, Remote Monitoring, ageing, integrated care, independent living, case studies, facilitators, governance, impact, drivers, barriers, integration, organisation |
| JEL: | I11 I18 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc94501&r=ppm |
| By: | Jelliffe, Jeremy L.; Bravo-Ureta, Boris E.; Deom, C. Michael |
| Abstract: | In sub-Saharan Africa, reliance on subsistence-level farming is a significant source of risk since farmers face protracted periods of drought and the frequent incidence and expanding reach of diseases and pests. It is likely that such occurrences will be exacerbated by global climate change, given recent forecasts and scientific findings. One strategy to mitigate these effects is through the adoption of new technologies. Following the established literature on technology adoption and productivity, this work is a reassessment of a 2004 AT Uganda farmer-led seed multiplication and dissemination project for groundnut growers. The major objective of this research is to determine the lasting impact of the project with respect to the adoption of rosette resistant varieties of groundnuts (RRVs). Panel data for the 2004 and 2013 growing seasons are used and include a set of participating farm households (HHs) and non-participating (control) HHs. The control sample is composed of both a neighboring and a non-neighboring farm group, which makes it possible to account for spillover effects and selection bias. In order to further control for possible biases, our identification strategy employs propensity score matching and instrumental variables methods. In this way, we examine the sustainability and lasting impact of the original intervention a decade after the fact. |
| Keywords: | Farm Management, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea15:205980&r=ppm |
| By: | Simons, Andrew M. |
| Abstract: | Who receives aid and how much he or she receives are questions of central importance for any well-functioning social protection program. We investigate community-based processes for allocating aid within Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program. We document local governments’ noncompliance with federal implementation mandates; instead of distributing aid via the federally mandated uniform per capita payment schedule, communities distribute aid based on locally determined equivalence scales. Rather than equalizing consumption, it appears that local communities allocate aid based on an earnings potential equivalence scale by assigning higher payments to cohorts that have lower wage earnings potential (e.g., teenage girls vs. teenage boys, adult women vs. adult men, elderly vs. working age adults). The decentralized implementation approach reduces head count poverty more than if communities followed central implementation mandates. However, poverty gap and poverty gap squared measures would be lower under central implementation mandates. The choice of distribution rules at the intensive margin does not materially affect poverty measures, suggesting that targeting efforts might be best focused on eligibility at the extensive margin. |
| Keywords: | decentralization, equivalence scales, social protection, targeting, safety nets, Ethiopia, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Public Economics, |
| Date: | 2015–05–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea15:205437&r=ppm |