Traditional Knowledge (TK) systems have always been integral to the survival and adaptation of human societies. Yet, they enjoy a fairly recent recognition and popularization by scientists, the media, politicians, corporates and the wider public. In this paper we present a typology of key...

This paper asks whether population growth is conducive to the sustainability of cooperation. A simple model is developed in which farmers who live around a circular lake engage in trade with their adjacent neighbors. The payoffs from this activity are governed by a prisoner’s dilemma “rule...

Over the last decade, commodity prices have registered substantial booms and busts marked by extreme volatility. Wheat in particular, one of the main non-oil commodities, has registered a roller-coaster in price levels which seems to be inconsistent with supply and demand fundamentals. To...

The paper reviews and evaluates the global political discussions of G-8 and G-20 Member countries on food security and food price volatility since the L’Aquila Initiative in 2009. It shows that some progress was achieved with respect to better coordination of agricultural policies and stricter...

In this paper, we review existing food and nutrition security indicators, discuss some of their advantages and disadvantages, and finally classify them and describe their relationships and overlaps. In order to achieve this, the paper makes reference to the existing definitions of food and...

Increases in water demand due to population growth, industrial development and urbanization necessitate economically efficient use of water resources worldwide. This is particularly true in the dryland zones of the world relying on irrigated agriculture for economic development such as in...

Assets are an important means of coping with adverse events in developing countries but the role of gendered ownership is not yet fully understood. This paper investigates changes in assets owned by the household head,his spouse,or jointly by both of them in response to shocks in rural...

This paper develops a model of voluntary migration into degrading work. The essence of the model is a tension between two “bads:” that which arises from being relatively deprived at home, and that which arises from engaging in humiliating work away from home. Balancing between these two...

This paper identifies the migration policies that emerge when both the sending country and the receiving country wield power to set migration quotas, when controlling migration is costly, and when the decision how much human capital to acquire depends, among other things, on the migration...

A utilitarian social planner who maximizes social welfare assigns the available income to those who are most efficient in converting income into utility. However, when individuals are concerned about their income falling behind the incomes of others, the optimal income distribution under...