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The 1997 White Paper on international development is the first such policy statement since 1975. Comparison of the two thus gives us an opportunity for assessing how official thinking and politics in the UK have responded to the many changes that have occurred in the meantime. This article first compares the views of the two papers on the nature of development and of the poverty problem; and then compares the treatment of EC/EU issues. Neither Paper was just about aid. We conclude that WP75 appears comparatively narrow in focus and unsophisticated in its appreciation of the problems addressed, but is better at taking a strategic view and more forthcoming about specifics. What WP97 gains in the breadth and sophistication of its appreciation of problems it loses in detachment from reality and retreat from specifics. Its treatment of EU issues is surprisingly laconic. But overall WP97—in its various forms—is more accessible and decidedly more populist. It has already been disseminated to a far wider audience than WP75 ever reached. Its success is in simplifying a world which development officials know has grown more complex; its failing is that they seem unsure about specifically how their influence and modest resources can best be applied to improving it. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Government published a new White Paper on International Development in November 1997. The White Paper sets out the UK Government's vision and new policies for the elimination of international poverty; it explains the new objectives and strategy for the Department for International Development and details the new objective of ensuring that all UK Government policies take account of their impact on sustainable development. This article summarizes the content of the White Paper and discusses in detail some of the issues involved in operationalizing the policies. It looks particularly at the new proposals for partnership between UK Government and developing countries and explores some of the implications of policies to support pro-poor economic growth. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent withdrawal of the U.S. military from the Republic of Panama has exposed 64,000 ha of lowland forest in the former Canal Zone to possible development. The forests form a 16-km-wide strip reaching 65 km from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean and function as the water supply for the canal and as home to one of the world's richest terrestrial biotas. We present an overview of the distribution of bird diversity in the forests of the canal area based on 10 years of inventories. A total of 498 terrestrial species has been recorded, of which 177 occur only in lowland forests. More species reside in Caribbean- than in Pacific-slope forests and in the largest forest tracts. The Panamanian government, recognizing the importance of the forests for protection of biodiversity and for proper functioning of the canal, has created two national parks and a national monument in the canal area. One large park, Soberania National Park, currently contains 92% of the region's forest-dwelling species. Two large tracts on the Caribbean coast, the Achiote Road forest and the Fort Sherman forest, are not designated as national parks but are recognized as important forest areas. Those two forests harbor species found nowhere else in the canal corridor. Extensive fragmentation, disconnection of forested corridors between foothills and lowlands, and anthropogenic degradation of forests near towns have altered regional bird-community dynamics. Some dynamics occur on large spatial scales, such as the poorly understood movements of elevational and transisthmian migrants. Long-term maintenance of bird species diversity in the canal area will require preservation of the large forest tracts and reestablishment of a forested connection from the canal corridor lowlands to the Chagres lowlands and foothills in the east. Such conservation activities will be challenging to execute given the region's growing human population and desires for a stronger national economy. We recommend protection of remaining forests and active enforcement of protection laws to reduce hunting and further intrusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides an overview of the research on the implementation of the new public management in developing countries. Purpose of the research; Modes of organizational reform; List of papers published in the research program.

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Are markets in developing and transition economies overregulated or under-regulated? This is a perennial question in the development discourse, but one for which answers appear to come more from preset ideology than from context- specific analysis and evidence. These issues become even more pressing when the debate turns to the links between regulation, deregulation and inequality. The recent experience of rising inequality in many countries has also brought to the fore predictable policy positions. A key aspect of labor regulation in developing countries, and one becoming more prominent in the era of rising inequality, is the minimum wage. The range of issues around regulation, minimum wage and informality was addressed by papers presented to a conference held in New Delhi on December 17-18, 2014. The conference was co-sponsored by the World Bank, UK Department for International Development, Cornell University and Columbia University. The organizers of the conference were Kaushik Basu, Stefan Dercon, Ravi Kanbur and Jan Svejnar. A selection of papers from the conference which passed the usual review procedures of the Review of Development Economics, and a further selection of papers from those submitted to the journal, form this symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We study the evolution of topics in economics and their geographical specialization by analyzing 13,233 papers from seven top journals between 1985 and 2012 and their forward citations. The share of U.S. publications declines from 75% to 64% with a corresponding increase of the European share from 12% to 24%. We use topic modeling and document the evolution of the discipline over 27 years. We estimate, with a quasi‐structural model, the citation lag distribution for 18 different topics and three large geographical areas. The modal citation lag is about 6.7 years in the entire sample and 4.8 years for citations from the top 100 journals. We quantify (1) the home bias effect in citations, (2) how it fades away over time, (3) the long lasting impact of U.S. publications vis‐à‐vis other geographical areas, and (4) the higher speed of diffusion and faster obsolescence in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In our 2011 survey of the literature in the Journal of Economic Surveys on the effect of government size on economic growth in wealthy countries we find a relatively consistent pattern: An increase in government size by 10 percentage points is associated with a 0.5-1 percentage point lower annual growth rate. This conclusion is questioned by Colombier. In this rejoinder we present a rebuttal of Colombier's argument based on a detailed scrutiny of his own statistical evidence and regression results. Furthermore, we note that several new papers that have appeared since our original paper was published give support to our main conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]