The Lubin Files

The link between agricultural production and nutrient consumption.

Research from IFPRI demonstrates an interesting relationship between nutrient intake, labor productivity, and agricultureal income in Uganda. This treatment of nutrition and agricultural productivity may be of interest to anyone working in predominantly agrarian countries with populations suffering malnutrition. See the abstract and link to the PDF of the article here.

World Economic and Social Survey 2010 released

World Economic and Social Survey 2010 (full report): Rooting Global Development has now been released.

The Survey points out promising directions for reform, including strengthening government capacities for formulating and implementing national development strategies. The Survey highlights the need for a strong mechanism for global economic coordination which establishes coherence across all areas of global economic governance.  This link... provides an access to the 2010 issue and issues going back to 1947.

World Economic Situation and Prospects - Mid Year Update

The mid-year update to the UN/DESA's World Economic Situation and Prospects has just been released.

The update highlights that:

while the world economy continued to improve in the first half of 2010, leading to a slight upward revision in the United Nations outlook for global growth, the pace of the recovery is too weak to close the global output gap left by the crisis. It also points out that the recovery is uneven across countries, with encouraging growth prospects for some developing countries, but lacklustre economic activity in developed economies and below potential growth elsewhere in the developing world. The Report argues that important weaknesses in the global economy remain, and draws attention to some of the policy challenges that need to be addressed to solidify and broaden the recovery.

Download the full report here.

World Economic Outlook

The International Monetary Fund's "World Economic Outlook Update" - January 2009 is now available.

Handbook of Agricultural Economics

Elsevier's Handbook of Agricultural Economics presents recent work on topics central to the economics of agriculture - the quantitative representation of technology, market expectations, household production behavior, consumer behavior with uncertain quality and safety of goods, issues of imperfect competition in food marketing. The Handbook covers the most exciting and innovative work being done today on these and related topics, on all of which agricultural economists have made notable contributions to economic science.

It is available online to all FAO staff members via library subscription.

Biofuel policies in OECD countries are costly and ineffective

Government support of  biofuel production in OECD countries is "costly, has a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security, and has a significant impact on world crop prices,"

This, according to the OECD report: Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies

Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change

This paper is written by Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics, author of the UK government’s 2006 report on climate change (also known as the "Stern Review").

Why obstacles to a deal on climate change are mountainous

Something has changed in the debate on man-made climate change: the US is engaged. But its engagement – or at least the engagement of President George W. Bush – is neither enthusiastic nor unconditional. In particular, at discussions among the heads of governments of the Group of Eight leading countries in Japan, Mr Bush stressed that China and India had to participate. In this, he was right: it will be impossible to tackle the problem without the participation of leading emerging countries. The question is on what terms they do so...

Read the rest of this column by Martin Wolf from the Financial Times.

The Impact of High Oil Prices on African Economies

Economic Research Working Paper No 93 (December 2007)
(published by the African Development Bank)

Abstract: On the one hand the high price of oil is a unique opportunity for African oil producers to use the windfall gains to speed up their development. On the other hand, it is having adverse effects on  net-oil importing countries, in particular those which cannot access international capital markets  to smooth out the shock. We construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, which is  tailored to reflect the characteristics of African economies, to quantify the effect of the increase  in the price of oil on the main macro economic aggregates...

The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development

The Commission on Growth and Development released its final report, "The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development," which looks at how developing countries can achieve fast, sustained, and equitable growth.

According to the Commission, fast, sustained growth is not a miracle.  It is attainable for developing countries with the "right mix of ingredients." Countries need leaders who are committed to achieving growth and who can take advantage of opportunities from the global economy. They also need to know about the levels of incentives and public investments that are necessary for private investment to take off and ensure the long-term diversification of the economy and its integration in the global economy...

Find the full text of the report here, in PDF