The paper examines agricultural production and productivity growth in two Central Asian countries – Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both countries are characterized by a significant shift of resources from the traditional Soviet model of collective agriculture to more market-compliant individual...

This paper shows the implications of credit and labor market imperfections on gender differences in agricultural labor productivity, especially highlighting how both imperfections negatively affect female productivity by discouraging off-farm income generating activities and restricting access...

Government spending should be regarded as a social and political phenomenon, not merely as a technical choice. We argue that there is an implicit contract between the organized elites and politicians which often leads to a pro-elite allocation of public resources. A natural and simple taxonomy...

Explicitly accounting for certain basic physical laws governing the “earth” sector dramatically enriches our ability to explain a high degree of diversity in observed patterns of economic growth. We provide a theoretical explanation of why some countries have been able to sustain a more or...

This paper explores the conditions for sustainable development through two models of economic growth that elucidates two extremes; an open economy with constant prices, and a closed economy with endogenous prices. Sustainable development is easier to achieve in the case of the former than the...

Removed at publisher's request Jan. 16, 2012

Helping to sustain a viable rural sector, rural tourism enjoys public support in many countries. We claim that due to club-good and agglomeration externalities in the rural accommodation market, public support should be integrated in a broader local development policy that regulates the number...