This paper studies how factors such as corruption perception and the level of democracy influence foreign direct investment to developing economies. Our results suggest that less corrupt countries and less democratic countries receive more foreign direct investment. What could account for this pattern of investment?This paper is the first to show that perceptions of corruption are highly correlated with indices of economic freedom, but uncorrelated with indices of political freedom. Hence less corrupt countries which provide the right kind of economic environment for investors, such as personal property protection, the right to move capital in and out of the country, or the ability to trade openly in world markets receive more FDI flows. At the same time, while democratic countries ensure provision of political and civil rights for citizens, these are not an automatic guarantee of economic freedoms. In fact, the correlation between the democracy index and these indices of economic freedom is surprisingly low. Hence more democratic countries may receive less FDI flows if economic freedoms are not guaranteed. There could be at least two explanations for why this may happen. First, democratizing developing economies are often unable to push through the kind of economic reforms that investors desire due to the presence of competing political interests. For instance, in some countries such as India, foreign capital is viewed by certain sections as being antagonistic to the interests of the poor and working classes. Hence liberalization measures often meet strong opposition from these groups. This is corroborated by the significant negative coefficient on left-leaning democracies in our regression equation. Second, our sample includes several countries in East Asia and South America that underwent major financial crises in the 1990s. Our results could partly be driven by the inability of these countries to liberalize economically and attract foreign capital subsequent to these crises. Hence the negative coefficient on democracy needs to be interpreted with caution. Democratization could encourage capital inflows provided political freedoms go hand in hand with economic freedoms. Our results might help explain why countries like China and Singapore that rank poorly on the democracy index but are relatively high on the property rights index (and in the case of Singapore, on the capital mobility index as well), do well in terms of FDI inflows.Our results also suggest that there is a diversion of FDI towards countries that are perceived to be less corrupt along these dimensions away from more corrupt countries. For instance, an improvement in the relative level of (perceived) corruption in China could (ceteris paribus) have adverse consequences for other countries in the South Asian region.Further, we find that former and current communist countries that started out with inefficiently high capital-output ratios due to heavy state-led industrialization may attract more inflows as they attempt to substitute 'efficient' forei...

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Asiatic lions typify most challenges faced by large carnivores: single population, historical bottlenecks, habitat loss, poaching, and conflict with humans. Their recovery from <50 in a few hundred km 2 to >500 occupying 13,000 km 2 of agro-pastoral Saurashtra landscape, Gujarat, India is an enigma. We review and evaluate the multidisciplinary aspects of lion conservation-strategy that covers ecology, conflict, community perceptions, economics, management, and politics. The history of modern lions in India dates back to ∼4-6,000 BP, but evidence suggests presence as early as 10-15,000 BP. Asiatic lions can be distinguished from African lions by their belly-folds; adult males and females weighing 160 (SE 4.7) and 116 (SE 3.7) kg, respectively. Lion density ranged from 2 to 15/100 km 2 in the Saurashtra landscape. Demographic parameters of Asiatic lions were comparable to African lions. Prides were related females and cubs; males lived separately in hierarchical coalitions having overlapping ranges with multiple prides. Lionesses mated with multiple coalitions to reduce infanticide and enhance genetic diversity of their progeny. Few hectares of scrub sufficed as daytime refuges, while >4 km 2 patches were required for breeding. Sink populations outside Gir Protected Area (PA) were maintained by immigrants. Lions within PA fed primarily on wild-prey, while scavenging and predation on livestock was the mainstay outside. Monetary compensation for livestock-depredation, legal-protection, lion-related profits, combined with religious and cultural sentiments were major drivers of population recovery. The lion has become a socio-political instrument in Gujarat, which despite a Supreme Court directive, has not parted with founders to establish another population. Threats from epidemics loom large and currently a canine distemper virus outbreak is prevalent. Attacks on humans were rare, however, with increasing lion density the intensity of conflict is increasing. This, coupled with lowered tolerance of communities due to erosion of traditional values sets the stage for retaliation. Future of lions outside PA is uncertain as breeding refuges and their connecting corridors are vanishing rapidly. A human-free National Park of ∼1,000 km 2 is essential for ensuring a viable population that retains its ecological role and evolutionary potential. Legalizing lion based ecotourism by forming village consortia holds promise to prevent land conversion and promoting lion-human coexistence.

Surfactants are a group of amphiphilic molecules (i.e., having both hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains) that are a vital part of nearly every contemporary industrial process such as in agriculture, medicine, personal care, food, and petroleum. In general surfactants can be derived from (i) petroleum-based sources or (ii) microbial/plant origins. Petroleum-based surfactants are obvious results from petroleum products, which lead to petroleum pollution and thus pose severe problems to the environment leading to various ecological damages. Thus, newer techniques have been suggested for deriving surfactant molecules and maintaining environmental sustainability. Biosurfactants are surfactants of microbial or plant origins and offer much added advantages such as high biodegradability, lesser toxicity, ease of raw material availability, and easy applicability. Thus, they are also termed "green surfactants". In this regard, this review focused on the advantages of biosurfactants over the synthetic surfactants produced from petroleum-based products along with their potential applications in different industries. We also provided their market aspects and future directions that can be considered with selections of biosurfactants. This would open up new avenues for surfactant research by overcoming the existing bottlenecks in this field.

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