The majority of the world's land is held in customary tenure systems, often with overlapping claims. Designing effective policy to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation requires understanding land management choices within these systems. Using a nation-wide random sample of over...

We use a single-country multi-regional computable general equilibrium model to evaluate regional short-run impacts of reduction in import tariffs resulting from recent free trade area agreements, on poverty and distribution of income in Brazil. Results show that trade can reduce inter-regional...

Although most countries in the world are rapidly urbanizing, the majority of the global population – particularly the poor – continue to live in rural areas. This Handbook rejects the popular notion that urbanization should be universally encouraged and presents clear evidence of...

Many researchers advocate active local government responses to poverty and other economic disparities. In doing so, they raise a generally unexplored question: can local governments themselves influence poverty net of other determinants? This study extends past research in two ways by (1)...

Social scientists have given substantial attention to poverty across U.S. localities. However, most work views localities through the lens of population aggregates, not as units of government. Few poverty researchers question whether governments of poorer localities have the capacity to engage...

Most economists understand that "place-based" policies are justified by (i) place uniqueness (spatial heterogeneity), (ii) undesirable spatial consequences of economic growth and change, (iii) inefficiencies due to jurisdictional fragmentation, (iv) significant spatial interdependencies between...