This study examines the impact of
climate change on cropland in Africa. It is based on a
survey of more than 9,000 farmers in 11 countries: Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger,
Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study uses
a Ricardian cross-sectional approach in which net revenue is
regressed on climate, water flow, soil, and economic
variables. The results show that net revenues fall as

This housing policy in developing
countries, conjectures and refutations article discusses
housing policy in developing economies. It examines recent
research findings in light of earlier arguments as to the
benefits of more market-oriented approaches. It also looks
at whether the recommendations of earlier work have been
refuted or developed in subsequent analyses and policy
measures. In particular, it reviews the empirical analysis

Previous Ricardian analyses of
agriculture have either omitted irrigation or treated
irrigation as though it is exogenous. In practice, it is a
choice by farmers that is sensitive to climate. This paper
develops a choice model of irrigation in the context of a
Ricardian model of cropland. The authors examine how climate
affects the decision to use irrigation and then how climate
affects the net revenues of dryland and irrigated land. This

The environment and security literature
has argued that freshwater scarcity often leads to
inter-state conflict, and possibly acute violence. The
contention, however, ignores the long history of
hydro-political cooperation exemplified by hundreds of
documented agreements. Building on a theory that considers
the relationship between scarcity and hydro-political
cooperation, this paper empirically investigates why

The authors compare the welfare effects of in situ slum upgrading programs with programs that provide slum dwellers with better housing in a new location. Evaluating the welfare effects of slum upgrading and resettlement programs requires estimating models of residential location choice, in which households trade off commuting costs against the cost and attributes of the housing they consume, including neighborhood attributes. The authors accomplish this using data for 5,000 households in Mumbai, a city in which 40 percent of the population live in slums.

Measurement of the likely magnitude of
the economic impact of climate change on African agriculture
has been a challenge. Using data from a survey of more than
9,000 farmers across 11 African countries, a cross-sectional
approach estimates how farm net revenues are affected by
climate change compared with current mean temperature.
Revenues fall with warming for dryland crops (temperature
elasticity of -1.9) and livestock (-5.4), whereas revenues

Costa Rica's Program of Payments
for Environmental Services (Pago de Servicios Ambientales,
PSA) provides a unique opportunity to evaluate direct
payments as a conservation policy tool. This paper reports
evidence on how much more forest has been conserved in Costa
Rica as a result of PSA contracts with landowners. Such
evidence requires estimating a counterfactual outcome: how
much forest would have been preserved if there had been no

In determining domestic water prices,
policy makers often need to use information about the demand
side rather than only relying on information about the
supply side. Household surveys have frequently been employed
to collect demand-side information. This paper presents a
multiple bounded discrete choice household survey model. It
discusses how the model can be utilized to collect and
analyze information about the acceptability of different

This article focuses mainly on the five
primary case study countries. For forest impacts, the
concentration is on forest conversion to other land uses and
deforestation, defined as a (temporary or permanent) removal
of trees to less than 10 percent crown cover, which is
similar to the Food and Agricultural Organization's
(FAO's) definition. Selective logging is thus not
deforestation but may degrade forests and enable conversion.

This paper uses the Ricardian approach
to examine how farmers in 11 countries in Africa have
adapted to existing climatic conditions. It then estimates
the effects of predicted changes in climate while accounting
for whatever farmer adaptation might occur. This study
differs from earlier ones by using farmers' own
perceptions of the value of their land. Previous research,
by contrast, has relied on either observed sale prices or

The Center for International Forestry
Research (CIFOR) receives its major funding from
governments, international development organizations,
private foundations and regional organizations. This study
analyzed journal citations of CIFOR publications, using the
International Statistical Institute (ISI) web of Science
database. CIFOR research and publications have an impact on
the scientific community? One way to answer this question is

The transition economies of Central and
Eastern Europe, through the reform process of
decentralization, are now seeking the devolution of fiscal
powers, and responsibilities from central, to local
governments, within financially sustainable environments. To
this end, a system of local budgets, and taxes needs to be
devised, over which local governments may have control.
Thus, this report focuses on the tax on immovable real