Healthy land ecosystems are essential to sustainable development, including food security and improved livelihoods. Yet, their key services have usually been taken for granted and their true value underrated, leading to land degradation becoming a critical global problem. This pattern of...

Extreme poverty is an immense political and market failure, wasting the potential of hundreds of millions of people. Investing in the creation of markets that include the extreme poor and marginalized should thus not only be considered as a charitable activity, but promises high returns on...

Healthy soils are essential for sustaining economies and human livelihoods. In spite of this, the key ecosystem services provided by soils have usually been taken for granted and their true value – beyond market value – is being underrated. This pattern of undervaluation of soils is about to...

The need to address extreme poverty from the perspective of marginality arises from the frustration that the number of the poorest and hungry remains unacceptably high. This triggered the call for an innovative approach from the side of science and action. The conceptual and analytical framework...

Since the 2007–08 food crisis, many thoughtful analyses have addressed the causes and impacts of high and volatile international food prices and proposed solutions to the crisis. These studies have covered global as well as local food price dynamics and policy reactions. The food price problem...

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner’s dilemma “rule of engagement.” A farmer’s payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner’s dilemma games played with his...

In this paper I study policy responses to an increase in post-merger distress. I consider the integration of regions and nations as a merger of populations which I view as a revision of social space, and I identify the effect of the merger on aggregate distress. The paper is based on the premise...

The tremendous human resource and economic burden of HIV/AIDS, malaria and diarrhoeal diseases is well acknowledged in many developing countries. Most of these diseases have multifaceted causes such as malnutrition, the consumption of contaminated water or poor education. Thus, cross-sectoral...

Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation services coupled with poor hygiene practices continues to kill, sicken and diminish opportunities of millions of people in developing countries. Various interventions to improve drinking water quality and service levels, sanitation and hygiene (WSH)...

Strong ties with the home country and with the host country can coexist. An altruistic migrant who sends remittances to his family back home assimilates more the more altruistic he is, and also more than a non-remitting migrant.