Reconsiders how natural resource abundance in minerals, oil and gas, water, and land is frequently associated with various negative development outcomes. Policy making has been affected by the theories on (1) economic performance of resource abundance; (2) political behavioral variables; and (3) civil war onset, duration, and intensity.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has demonstrated that humans are already undermining or even threatening the capacity of many of the world's terrestrial ecosystems to deliver essential services to humanity. Land use is one major factor that may act as a stressor on ecosystems and has been shown to be able to alter global biogeochemical cycles as well as influence biodiversity on local, regional and even global scales. Climate change will affect land systems both directly, i.e.

It is widely believed that bioenergy will contribute significantly to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, higher energy security, and stimulate rural development. On the other hand, competition with food production for land and water as well as carbon and biodiversity losses due to the large-scale removal of natural vegetation for biomass plantations are among the most important arguments raised against any further expansion of the bioenergy sector.

Projections of future crop yields are highly uncertain. At global to regional scale, CO2 fertilization has the potential to generally increase crop yields on current crop land. However, it is highly unlikely that yield increases due to CO2 fertilization will be fully achieved in most regions, as long term positive effects are subject to scientific debate and increased yield levels require also adaptations in management.

Discusses ways to enhance the incentives for elites to invest political capital in achieving (1) functional results through the formal public finance management (PFM) system; (2) the effectiveness of agencies responsible for services and regulating activities; and (3) better performance of civil service officials.

Tajikistan is a small mountainous
land-locked Central Asian country with an economy that
heavily depends, as a legacy of the soviet economy, on
exports of cotton, aluminum and hydroelectricity that are
three rather environmentally sensitive sectors, as well as
on remittances from migrants living abroad. Environmental
degradation and unsustainable use of natural resources are
constraints to sustainable economic growth and poverty

Access to assets and agrarian institutions is of critical importance to the economic viability of rural households. Understanding the extent of this access and how it links to the ability of rural households to employ different pathways out of poverty is thus vital for designing rural development policies. This paper characterizes household access to assets and agrarian institutions through the comparative analysis of datasets from 15 nationally representative household surveys from four regions of the developing world.

High credit growth in Emerging Europe,
generally considered a sign of catching-up with the
"old" Europe, has begun receiving considerable
attention among investors and policymakers alike. Given
heightened global risks and the demands under the European
Union accession process, the need to better understand this
high credit growth's drivers, riskiness, and the
possible macroeconomic and financial stability consequences

This report reviews Community Driven
Development (CDD) projects in Lao People's Democratic
Republic (PDR) to determine their effectiveness in
channeling resources to communities for poverty reduction.
The study examines three CDD projects in depth: the Poverty
Reduction Fund, the Village Investment for the Poor (both
supported by the World Bank), and the Government-financed
Village Development Fund. Through close analysis of these

This Financial Sector Assessment (FSA)
summarizes the structural and developmental aspects of the
2007 Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) update
report for the Republic of Croatia. An in-depth elaboration
on the stability and prudential oversight aspects of the
FSAP Update, including factual updates of core principles
and Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs),
are summarized in the Financial System Stability Assessment

The globalization of corporate finance also points to other challenges. As emerging-market corporations have expanded their international operations, they have increased their exposure to interest rate and currency risks. Concerns are growing that several countries in emerging Europe and Central Asia are experiencing a credit boom engendered by cross-border borrowing by banks of untested financial health and stamina. Some of these banks have increased their foreign exchange exposure to worrisome levels, a concern that warrants special attention from national policymakers.

Few governments have put as much energy into the development of vast and harsh places as has Russia. History shows that equalization of economic (especially industrial) mass across space as a method of a uniform development and of town-countryside convergence was in fact a policy of defensive and political aims rather than one of economic and social progress. The Soviet policy of industrial diffusion, together with state support and price system distortions, would eventually bring the entire Soviet system down.