This paper analyzes the rationale and limits of using labor contracts as a risk-sharing mechanism by (1) discussing types of contracts and their characteristics; (2) deriving the optimal labor contract for risk-neutral firms and risk-averse workers; (3) contrasting the predictions of contract labor and spot labor markets; (4) discussing the limits of labor contracts as a mechanisms to allocate risks; (5) focusing on rural labor markets, where labor and land contracts provide substitutes and have implication in relation to risk allocation; (6) discussing government interventions; and (7) rev

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.

China has made some remarkable achievements in sustainable development, but the constant deterioration of the overall trend of the environment has not yet been effectively curbed. To achieve the goal of sustainable development, we must first ensure coordination and coherence of national development goals in different areas and adhere to green development road. To achieve the objectives related to green development, and to clarify the direction of green development in the next 20 years, a road map is needed to guide and coordinate the process.

Worldwide urbanization has become a crucial issue in recent years. Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely-populated countries in the world, has been facing rapid urbanization. In urban areas, maternal indicators are generally worse in the slums than in the urban non-slum areas. The Manoshi program at BRAC, a non governmental organization, works to improve maternal, newborn, and child health in the urban slums of Bangladesh. This paper describes maternal related beliefs and practices in the urban slums of Dhaka and provides baseline information for the Manoshi program.

Ninth in a series of annual reports comparing business
regulations in 183 economies, Doing Business 2012 measures
regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity:

• starting a business
• dealing with construction permits
• employing workers
• registering property
• getting credit
• protecting investors
• paying taxes
• trading across borders
• enforcing contracts
• closing a business
• getting electricity

Multi-taxon surveys were conducted in species-rich, lowland palaeotropical and neotropical forested landscapes in Sumatra, Indonesia and Mato Grosso, Brazil. Gradient-directed transects (gradsects) were sampled across a range of forested land use mosaics, using a uniform protocol to simultaneously record vegetation (vascular plant species, plant functional types (PFTs) and vegetation structure), vertebrates (birds, mammals) and invertebrates (termites), in addition to measuring site and soil properties, including carbon stocks.

Urban transportation externalities are a key development challenge. Based on the existing literature, the authors illustrate the magnitudes of various external costs, review response policies, and measure and discuss their selection, particularly focusing on the context of developing countries. They find that regulatory policy instruments aimed at reducing local air pollution have been introduced in most countries in the world. On the other hand, fiscal policy instruments aimed at reducing congestion or greenhouse gas emissions are limited mainly to industrialized economies.

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.

Should polio be eradicated worldwide, countries must decide whether to continue to
vaccinate with the live-attenuated vaccine, to continue to vaccinate with the alternative,
killed vaccine, or to cease vaccinating. To reap a dividend from polio eradication,
countries must choose the last option, but vaccination cessation entails interdependent
risks as well as rewards. This article models the polio vaccination cessation game,
deriving the conditions that support vaccination cessation as an equilibrium, describing

Despite a diminishing role in industrial countries, the manufacturing sector continues to be an engine of economic growth in most developing countries. This article surveys the evidence on the determinants of industry location in developing countries. It also employs micro data for India and Indonesia to illustrate recent spatial dynamics of manufacturing relocation within urban agglomerations. Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that agglomeration benefits, market access, and infrastructure endowments in large cities outweigh the costs of congestion, higher wages, and land prices.

Take-up of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India decreases with basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, increases with household wealth, and decreases with binding credit constraints. These results are consistent with the predictions of a simple neoclassical model with borrowing constraints. Other patterns are less consistent with the benchmark model.

The key features of the Malthusian model are that (i) income determines population growth, with rising wages increasing survival rates and (ii) there is a vital factor of production (land) which is fixed, implying decreased returns to scale for all other factors. The equilibrium state in such a model is a population living on subsistence incomes.