The article is the introduction to the volume edited by the author with the same title on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Manlio Rossi-Doria. The volume is a collection of selected writings published between 1929 and 1986 divided in four thematic sections: agronomic modernization,...

This chapter considers the linkages between agricultural development and rural non-farm activities. The chapter is motivated by growing evidence that non-farm activities provide an increasingly important share of rural incomes in many low-income questions, questions about whether increasing...

The way in which natural and physical capital are accumulated, distributed and harnessed underpins the functioning and sustainability of the productive system of each society as well as its social stratification. Significant changes in the interactions between natural and physical capital...

We estimate how random weather fluctuations affected infant mortality across 28 African countries in the past, combining high-resolution data from retrospective fertility surveys (DHS) and climate-model reanalysis (ERA-40). We find that infants were much more likely to die when exposed in utero...

We describe important institutions that shape climate change policies together with a set of key market-reliant instruments. We selectively review the related economic literature, emphasizing empirical studies that assess the efficacy of current policies and the workings of policy-dependent...

The past half-century has witnessed a dramatic change in the way in which people live. Fifty years ago, only a small proportion of the less developed world lived in cities, and world poverty was overwhelmingly rural. In 1950, less than one-fifth of the population of the “third world” was...

Urbanisation will continue in China, with the government planning to grant urban residential status to an additional 100 million rural workers by 2020. While this process is transforming the urban economy, the rural economy is also undergoing substantial structural change. Government policy...

This chapter on urbanization and growth focuses on modeling and empirical evidence that pertain to a number of inter-related questions. Why do cities form in an economy, with so much of economic activity in countries geographically concentrated in cities? Second, how do different types of cities...