Technology-based economic development has been a highly sought-after objective for regions in developed and developing countries alike. The wealth created by regional knowledgebased economies like Silicon Valley is an attractive outcome. Without understanding clusterbased economic strategy, the different types of technology-based economic development approaches, the factors that dictate success or failure, and how those factors interrelate within a particular region, then the probability of success is minimal at best. Economic Development is a process and hence lends itself to a Systems Engineering approach, which was chosen as the methodology for analyzing and designing a better model for studying regions around the world to identify Factors that were both common and key to successful regional development. Each region was viewed as a system with inputs and outputs. The challenge in developing a useful system model is the development of the required Factors and Processes to be used. In the development of the model most of the Factors are internal to the system, but many may be affected by external events. The weighting (importance) of these Factors is the topic of much debate. To develop a baseline of Factors the Delphi method was used. Fortunately, a number of world-wide experts agreed to participate in one on one interviews to analyze these Factors, which in itself added a great deal to the body of knowledge of economic development beyond just the Factors. One obvious result was the essentially unanimous opinion of the group that leadership was the most important factor. A less obvious outcome, but one of equal importance was that there are two classes of regional economic development: one for mass job creation and another for the creation of a knowledge-based regional economy. Often regions undertake economic development without understanding this significant difference. While the model developed can be used for either goal it is extremely important that developers know in advance which goal is being pursued, which is also one of the critical outcomes of strong leadership. While all indications are that this model is a major improvement over current approaches, because this is a new approach until this research is followed by additional interviews, and by applying the model to actual regional technology-based economic development environments it's validity remains unproven.

Institutions are considered a fundamental determinant of economic growth. And agriculture is the key sector for poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth in low and middle-income countries. The vital role of agriculture would not materialize without sustained agricultural productivity growth driven by public investments in agricultural Research and Development (R&D). The objective of the thesis is threefold: (i) to measure the effect of institutions on agricultural productivity and on public agricultural R&D investments in low and middle incomes countries, (ii) to estimate the impact of public R&D investment on agricultural productivity, and (iii) to test the hypothesis that agricultural R&D spending would differ across countries at different stages of economic development (i.e., examine the role of per capita GDP in determining agricultural R&D spending).Agricultural productivity is measured by yield (cereal yield); institutions are measured by four indicators: protection of property rights, impartial public administration, judicial independence, and legal enforcement of contracts; agricultural R&D is represented by public investments in R&D. Data were collected from the World Bank, the FRASER Institute, and the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) over the period of 2000 to 2011 and in 49 low-and middle-income countries (25 from sub-Saharan Africa, 11 from LAC, and 13 from Asia). Panel data with fixed effects models were estimated to address the three objectives. The multiple linear regression analysis reveals the protection of property rights and legal enforcement of contracts have a substantial but opposite impact on agricultural productivity (cereal yield) across low-and middle-income countries. The same result suggests that impartial public administration affect positively public agricultural R&D investment while property rights, judicial independence, and legal enforcement of contracts have no significant implications on public agricultural R&D investment. The analysis also indicates that agricultural R&D investment positively impacts cereal yield across low-and middle-income countries. The same analysis carried out in the three regions has shown that the four institution indicators have different effects on agricultural productivity (cereal yield) and public agricultural R&D investment. In addition, the analysis suggests that public agricultural R&D investment significantly impacts agricultural productivity in Asia and the LAC regions but not in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the result confirms that agricultural R&D spending differs across countries at different stages of economic development.