This essay addresses two major challenges confronting the road tranportation sector: reducing emissions and improving road safety. After energy production, the transportation sector is the second largest source of carbon emissions, accounting for about one quarter of all fossil fuel emissions....

This paper provides the text of the Gunnar Myrdal Lecture presented at the U.N. Palais des Nations in 2003. The lecture suggests that the gaps in income per capita between richer and poorer countries largely reflect the quality of their institutions. Institutions, by reducing uncertainty, are...

This paper provides the text of the Gunnar Myrdal Lecture presented at the U.N. Palais des Nations in 2004. The lecture addresses the present economic and political conditions in an integrated Europe and the challenges ahead, particularly how the expansion of the European Union will require...

The impact of the dependence on primary commodities for economic development is analysed within the framework of growth regressions. While there is no evidence of a generalized primary commodity curse, reliance on primary commodities does retard growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Which factors...

This paper discusses the policy options that resource-rich economies need to implement in order to promote capital formation and sustainable development.

This essay discusses the challenges in financing economic development in the eastern European and CIS economies. The advantages and pitfalls of extensively relying external capital are explored.

Despite recent progress in developing a political consensus that policy changes are needed at both the domestic and international level to address climate change, the required political and public will is still insufficient to overcome a number of political barriers limiting progress.This essay...

This essay explains the importance of the forests as a factor in addressing the challenges in mitigating climate change. The potential of using the forest sector more fully to capture and store carbon has been limited by the failure of current protocols and other climate change mechanisms to...

A key component of climate change mitigation efforts will be the need to develop new technological solutions and to diffuse current state-of-the-art technologies to developing countries. However, due to a number of market failures, the required research and technological transfers are currently...