Inequality, exclusion and lack of mobility are unfortunate characteristics of life for Brazil's poorest and minority citizens. It is a pervasive and debilitating problem that is perceived to be the result of fair rules but poor administration. Policy changes are needed to ensure fair opportunities for everyone. These include ensuring fair access to labor markets, facilitating access to assets such as land, expanding and improving social security, building human capital, focusing on youth, decreasing race inequality and discrimination, and strengthening participation and citizenship.

Finnish economic history during the "long" 20th century, with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth, is reviewed. IT is argued that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth and equity, such as land reform and compulsory schooling. The state participated in economic activity both indirectly and directly in the post-war period, implementing many social policy reforms that facilitated the functioning of the labor market and led to greater equity.

Two general characteristics of rural populations are studied: farming operations at the global level and global rural demographic trends. Analysis of farming at the global level shows that agricultural land is expanding in Latin America and Africa, while expansion limits have been reached in South Asia. Roughly 90% of the world�s farms are small, defined as smaller than 2 hectares, especially in high density areas.

In carrying out the program for investment climate reform, Orissa State has to keep three things uppermost: It s critical to strike the right balance between private and social interests so that both are mutually reinforced and growth is equitable and inclusive. 2) Both the implementation capacity of government and the political economy of reforms will require appropriate prioritization of reforms with a clear identification of short-, medium-, and long-term actions.

Existing empirical studies on the relation between inequality and growth have been criticized for their focus on income inequality and their use of cross-country data sets. Schipper and Hoogeveen use two sets of small area welfare estimates-often referred to as poverty maps-to estimate a model of rural per capita expenditure growth for Uganda between 1992 and 1999. They estimate the growth effects of expenditure and education inequality while controlling for other factors, such as initial levels of expenditure and human capital, family characteristics, and unobserved spatial heterogeneity.

The authors' analysis of manufacturing plants sampled from India's major industrial centers shows large productivity gaps across cities. The gaps partly reflect differences in agglomeration economies and in market access. However, they are also explained to a greater extent by differences in the degree of labor regulation and in the severity of power shortages.

This paper helps build a clear picture of the role of women in China's agriculture and, if agricultural feminization has been occurring, its impact on labor use, productivity, and welfare. Using two data sets that track changes in labor use over time, the authors examine the evolution of off farm and on farm employment trends and analyze the role of men and women in the emergence of China's labor markets. They explore who is working on China's farms, and the effects of these decisions on labor use, productivity and welfare.

The primary purpose of this paper is to update the Poverty Assessment from June, 2000, and to give an assessment of the poverty situation in Tajikistan in 2003 and changes since 1999. The paper is part of an on-going program of work conducted in close cooperation with the Government, based on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the ongoing work of the PRSP Expert Group. The work program includes the production of a series of relatively short analytical papers rather than one full poverty assessment every four years or so.

The first section of this issue brief reviews the largely under-recognized place of the ASM sector in national economies. Next, it describes briefly how ASM has been at the root of many resource conflicts in developing countries—particularly in west and central Africa. This is followed by a discussion of how the clarification of property rights contributes to the reduction of conflicts over mineral resources.

Last week, USAID's May/June 2012 Issue of FrontLines, was released; it features stories on Child Survival and Ethiopia. One of the Ethiopia articles profiles a Land Tenure and Property Rights project. Karol Boudreaux shares project challenges and successes in, "A Powerful Piece of Paper".
 

Cities in the modern world are beginning to share some features with the city-states of millennia past. Now, as then, cities are important, even critical, to economic development. Unlike the walled cities that harbored flourishing trade in medieval Europe, today, cities by the thousands all around the world are looking outward in search not of silk and spices, but rather sources of finance, global talent, and most of all, good ideas. But the search for knowledge isn't always easy.

China should complete its transition to a market economy--through enterprise, land, labor, and financial sector reforms--strengthen its private sector, open its markets to greater competition and innovation, and ensure equality of opportunity to help achieve its goal of a new structure for economic growth.