Panhandle Research and Extension Center Field Day

Commodity trader. Financial analyst. Human resources director. Marketing analyst. Lending officer. Stockbroker. Public relations specialist. Zookeeper. Nutritionist. These are only a few of the varied careers recent College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources graduates are pursuing these days. Exciting, fulfilling careers for which the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources - we call the college CASNR for short - provides a tremendous educational base that students can build on for their lives.

Northeast Research and Extension Center VIP Tour

What a pleasure it is to be with you all tonight as we celebrate achievement! It is always a joy to me to see good work, hard work, work that matters, recognized. We certainly had the opportunity to see work that matters on today's tour, and I thank our Northeast Research and Extension Center faculty for all their research and extension efforts that further our land-grant mission. I also thank the staff of the Center for their good work in support of this mission.

Panhandle Research and Extension Center feedlot expansion dedication

Good morning. It's always a pleasure to visit western Nebraska with its wide open spaces, much of it filled with cattle. Cattle are tremendously important to Nebraska - it being our state's largest single industry. Nebraska boasts many more cattle than people - around 4 1/2 times more, counting all cattle and calves.

IANR Research and Extension Centers and their associated districts

It's a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak with you about the University’s four strategically placed Research and Extension Centers and their associated extension districts, all part of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

ESSAYS ON INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SPILLOVERS

The dissertation consists of three essays on international research and development spillovers. In the first essay, I investigate the degree to which differences in institutional arrangements among Sub-Saharan African countries determine the extent of benefits they derive from foreign research and development spillovers. In particular, I compare the international research and development spillovers for English common law and French civil law Sub-Saharan African countries. I show that differences in the legal origin of the company law or commercial codes in these countries may reflect the extent of barriers they place in the paths of firms that engage in the investment process. To tests this hypothesis, I constructed foreign R&D spillovers variable using imports as weights and employed the endogenous growth framework to estimate elasticities of productivity with respect to foreign R&D spillovers for a sample of 17 English common law and French Civil law Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2004. My results find support for the hypothesis. In particular, foreign R&D spillovers were higher in the English common law countries than in the French civil law countries. In the second essay, I examine the question of whether technical cooperation grants and overseas development assistance grants induce R&D knowledge spillovers in Sub-Saharan African countries. I test this hypothesis using data for 11 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2004. I constructed foreign R&D spillovers using the technical cooperation grants and overseas development assistance grants as weights and employed the endogenous growth framework to provide quantitative estimates of foreign R&D spillover effects in 11 Sub-Saharan African countries. I find that technical cooperation grants and overseas development assistance grants are major mechanisms through which returns to R&D investments in G7 countries flows to Sub-Saharan African countries. However, their influence has declined over the years. Finally, the third essay tests the hypothesis that the relationship between a country's exporters and their foreign purchasing agents may lead to the exchange of ideas and thereby improve the manufacturing process and productivity in the exporting country. I test this hypothesis using disaggregated export data from OECD countries. The foreign R&D capital stock in this essay was constructed as exports weighted average of domestic R&D capital stock. I find empirical support for the hypothesis. In particular, capital goods exports generate more learning effects and therefore best explain productivity in OECD countries than non-capital goods exports.