Globalization: A Critical Introduction

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were endorsed unanimously by all 189 UN member states and emerged as one of the central pillars of the global fight against poverty. However, the changes the MDGs brought about have been mixed at best. Though there are some notable successes, the MDGs have failed to bring about a substantial shift towards tackling global poverty and have had only a weak impact on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Several reasons are put forward for this failure: the continuing lack of political concern with poverty; the lack of a social movement behind the MDGs; and the lack of a well formed epistemic community for the MDGs to tie into. However, this paper argues that it would be wrong to dismiss the MDGs as a complete failure. The MDG project should instead be seen in a long term context as having played a role in changing international values and contributed to the emergence of an international norm that sees poverty in an affluent world as being morally unacceptable.     

Lone Mothers: What is to be done?

This Dialogue presents the views of four authors, from the US, the UK, and Norway, on the best policies to help lone mothers. Lone mothers face an inevitable dilemma in allocating their time between earning income and caring for their children. The low-earning capacity of women in an unequal labor market exacerbates the problem, causing material hardship for many lone mothers and their families. The policy solutions proposed lie along a spectrum, ranging from those that seek to enable all lone mothers to take employment to those that aim to let mothers choose whether to take employment or care for their children themselves. Other policies discussed concern ways to value and support caregiving, improve the low-wage labor market for women, and provide a set of income supports that would both boost income and provide time to care for children.     

中国生态贫困的主体分析

基于CAS理论的视角,考虑相关数据,将对生态贫困产生影响的因素从四个方面进行分类,建立中国生态贫困影响因素测度指标体系框架,并运用eviews计量模型,从实证的角度对中国生态贫困的影响因素及形成机制进行分析.结果证明生态资本变化率对贫困变化率有着最为显著性影响,而且这种影响表现为二者之间存在负相关关系,即生态资本与贫困的相关变化率为负.合理经营生态资本,促进生态资本增值有利于生态贫困治理.     

Trade liberalization,technology, relative factor supplies and the relative wage: evidence from the South

There is much controversy about the role that trade liberalization, technological change and relative factor supplies have played in bringing about changes in the relative wage of the unskilled workers. Much of the empirical work on this issue has focused on the industrial countries and paid little attention to developing countries. To fill this gap, this study develops a special data set to examine the relative wage behaviour of a large number of developing countries. An empirical model based on the theory is used to test different explanations of the relative wage change. As predicted by the technology explanation, the empirical analysis in the study finds a significant negative link between the relative wage of unskilled workers and the technology index. The analysis, however, does not find a significant role for labour supplies or trade liberalization in determining the relative wage of unskilled–skilled workers.     

Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil in 2008

Food price inflation in Brazil in the 12 months to June 2008 was 18%, whereas overall inflation was 7%. Using spatially disaggregated monthly data on consumer prices and two different household surveys, we estimate the welfare consequences of these food price increases, and their distribution across households. Because Brazil is a large food producer, with a predominantly wage‐earning agricultural labour force, our estimates include general equilibrium effects on market and transfer incomes, as well as the standard estimates of changes in consumer surplus. Although the expenditure (or consumer surplus) effects were large, negative and markedly regressive everywhere, estimates of the market‐income effect were positive and progressive, particularly in rural areas. Because of this effect on the rural poor, and of the partial protection afforded by increases in two large social assistance benefits, the overall impact of higher food prices in Brazil was U‐shaped, with middle‐income groups suffering larger proportional losses than the very poor. Nevertheless, as Brazil is 80% urban, higher food prices still led to a greater incidence and depth of poverty at the national level.     

Economic impacts of conservation farming in a marginal environment: the case of ‘Landcare’ in the Philippines

In the marginal, upland regions of the Philippines, soil erosion and poverty are significant problems. The Landcare Programme has sought to address these twin problems. We assess the economic impacts of the Landcare Programme in the Province of Bohol. We first explore whether the adoption of Landcare practices, particularly those of contour farming and tree planting, in a highly degraded landscape has resulted in improved livelihood outcomes for upland farming families. Second, we analyse the potential for the piecemeal adoption of these measures to deliver tangible benefits at the watershed scale. Finally, using a benefit–cost approach, these outcomes are compared with the costs of research and extension projects that have helped achieve them. We conclude that the net economic impact of the Landcare Programme in Bohol is positive, with the primary beneficiaries being the individual households that adopt the Landcare practices. These benefits are largely generated by productive opportunities that arise once the hillsides have been stabilized. Although the downstream impacts of land-use changes associated with the Landcare Programme are positive, they are of marginal economic importance. Hence, the focus and primary justification of the Landcare Programme should be on improving the productivity and livelihoods of upland farming households.