The authors evaluate the impact of two
key factor market distortions in China on rural-urban
inequality and income distribution. They find that creation
of a fully functioning land market has a significant impact
on rural-urban inequality. This reform permits agricultural
households to focus solely on the differential between farm
and non-farm returns to labor in determining whether to work
on or off-farm. This gives rise to an additional 10 million

Turkmenistan's unique approach to
land reform and farm restructuring has produced a
significant shift to individual or household-based farming,
with more than three-quarters of the arable land leased to
individual households or small groups. Most leaseholders
consider this land to be rightfully theirs, and they expect
to keep it in the future, either as private owners, or
through extension of their leasehold. However, individual

The authors explore the use of
cross-sectional analysis to measure the impacts of climate
change on agriculture. The impact literature, using
experiments on crops in laboratory settings combined with
simulation models, suggests that agriculture will be
strongly affected by climate change. The extent of these
effects varies by country and region. Therefore, local
experiments are needed for policy purposes, which becomes

A "forest-hydrology-poverty
nexus" hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor
upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity and
increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation, and
other damaging hydrological processes. The authors use rough
heuristics to assess the applicability of this hypothesis to
Central America. They do so by using a simple rule of thumb
to identify watersheds at greater risk of hydrologically

A tradable development rights (TDR)
program focusing on biodiversity conservation faces a
crucial problem defining which areas of habitat should be
considered equivalent. Restricting the trading domain to a
narrow area could boost the range of biodiversity conserved
but could increase the opportunity cost of conservation. The
issue is relevant to Brazil, where TDR-like programs are
emerging. Current regulations require each rural property to

This study examines the poverty, and
growth experience of six villages in rural Ethiopia, from
1989 to 1995. The time period was one of relative peace
politically, which promoted considerable change in economic
policies pertaining to the rural sector. As a result, local
growth out-performed the average growth rate in gross
domestic product. The focus of the study is the link between
economic reforms, growth, and changes in poverty. The author

The Little Green Data Book 2004 is based
on the World Development Indicators 2004, and represents a
succinct collection of information. It is a collaboration
between the Development Economics Data Development Group,
and the Environment Department of the World Bank. Under the
headings of agriculture, forests, biodiversity, energy,
emissions and pollution, water and sanitation, and
'greener' national accounts, it presents key

Decentralized forest management is an
important policy issue in India and elsewhere. Yet there are
few careful studies of the impacts of community forestry.
The authors try to fill this gap by analyzing National
Sample Survey data from 524 villages in five states in
India. Their analysis seeks to answer two key questions: (1)
Who participates in community forestry and what are the
determinants of participation? (2) What is the impact of

Community-based natural resource
management is an important strategy to conserve and
sustainably use biodiversity and wildlife in Namibia. The
authors examine the extent to which conservancies have been
successful in meeting their primary goal of improving the
lives of rural households. They evaluate the benefits of
community conservancies in Namibia by asking three
questions: Do conservancies increase household welfare? Are

A common-agency lobbying model is
developed to help understand why North America and the
European Union have adopted such different policies toward
genetically modified (GM) food. Results show that when
firms (in this case farmers) lobby policy makers to
influence standards and consumers and environmentalists care
about the choice of standard, it is possible that increased
competition from abroad can lead to strategic incentives to

The report contributes to the debate
surrounding land use in the Brazilian Amazon. It sets the
context by reviewing the evidence concerning the deleterious
effect of increasing levels of rainfall on agricultural
settlement, and productivity. Next, it compares the economic
future of an Amazonian community, under the traditional
"predatory logging followed by ranching" model,
and under sustainable logging. Last, the authors investigate

This is the sixth edition of the World
Development Indicators in its current format, the 25th since
the World Bank began publishing a comprehensive set of
development indicators. It begins with a report on the
Millennium Development Goals, which set specific, measurable
targets for development in the early 21st century. To
measure progress, results have to be measured and for that
good statistics are needed. Most of the statistics in this