It is often argued that returns to R&D are low in developing countries, making imported technologies a better path to growth. Yet technologies designed for frontier nations may not fit local conditions, limiting their productivity gains. This column studies Brazil’s Embrapa, a large public R&D effort to create agricultural innovation suited to Brazil’s ecology. Embrapa shifted research toward local needs and raised agricultural productivity by 110%, far outweighing its costs. Sustained, locally targeted R&D can be a key part of development policy.

(Fall 2025) - We decipher the riddle of the meteoric rise of the Asian Miracles—Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and Japan before them—in the second half of the twentieth century. We argue that...

The group’s production index slid 2.8 points to 48.2, marking the second month in the last three that output has contracted. The ISM’s employment gauge shrank for a ninth straight month, albeit at a ...

In January 2025, the PSF submitted a proposal to the US government National Science Foundation under the Safety, Security, and Privacy of Op...

77 posts tagged ‘ai-in-china’. See also my tags for Qwen and DeepSeek.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) is increasingly concerned by imminent disruption to European vehicle manufacturing due to the block in supply of foundational microchips that are essential for our members’ manufacturing.

Sudan’s paramilitary forces killed hundreds of people including patients in a hospital after they seized el-Fasher city in the western Darfur region over the weekend, according to the UN, displaced re...