Can German national institutional frameworks be reconfigured to allow radical innovation in science-based industries? This paper examines the development of commercial technologies for entrepreneurial biotechnology start-up firms in Germany. During the 1980s and early 1990s an inadequate institutional infrastructure stifled virtually all attempts to organize entrepreneurial biotech start-up fir...

We examine the impact of institutional quality and social capital on aid effectiveness. We find strong evidence that social capital and institutions enhance aid effectiveness. Moreover, once we account for the role of social capital and institutions, the impact of policies tend to disappear. These findings have important policy implications as they indicate that conditioning aid allocation on ‘...

AIMS This study aimed to explore rural Australians' perceptions of social and cultural factors influencing alcohol use in their communities. METHODS Semi-structured interviews exploring rural community key informants' (n = 46) perceptions of social and cultural factors influencing alcohol consumption in their community were conducted. A narrative analysis identified cultural capital as a sali...

There is a growing consensus among urban analysts that inner-city neighborhoods suffer from a lack of social capital. Because these areas do not have a strong social infrastructure in place to support successful revitalization efforts, urban policy recommendations now call for developing social capital in the worst-off parts of our cities. However, this consensus has been reached without any em...

Rural exodus is a significant issue for the livelihood of outback communities. Institutional arrangements structure the incentives for a community's viability and stability. This study investigated the institutional arrangements related to natural resource management and social processes in the Etheridge Shire (Queensland, Australia) through qualitative research and quantitative modelling. The ...