The Amazon rainforest, the world's largest tropical rainforest and an important constituent of the global biosphere, continues degrading by rapid deforestation, which is expected to continue despite policies to prevent it. Current international funding to protect the Amazon rainforest focuses on...

The Amazon rainforest, the world's largest and most biodiverse, represents a global public good of which 15 percent has already been lost. The worldwide value of preserving the remaining forest is today unknown. A "Delphi" exercise was conducted involving more than 200 environmental valuation...

This paper surveys the current state of knowledge concerning the value of the Amazon rainforest, including a survey of work to date to quantify changes in economic values when the rainforest cover changes. The focus is on local and regional impacts of forest loss or protection, including both...

The Amazon Rainforest is a global public good. As such, and given that 15 percent of the original Amazon forest area has already been lost, households worldwide might be willing to pay to reduce or avoid additional losses. A full elicitation of global preferences for valuing preservation of the...

Ghana's economic growth picked up in the early 2000s and has been exceptionally strong over the past few years, with price booms of its main commodity exports, gold and cocoa, and the initiation of commercial oil production in 2011. This paper examines recent econometric evidence on Ghana's...

This paper employs a simple cross-country panel framework to assess the determinants of growth in Ghana's gross domestic product over the past four decades. A set of standard covariates is used to explain growth rates. Natural resource variables are included because the effects of natural...

Two of the great stylized predictions of development theory, and two of the great expectations of policy makers as indicators of progress in development, are inexorable urbanization and inexorable formalization. Urbanization is indeed happening, beyond the "tipping point" where half the world's...

The objective of this paper is to inform Liberia's medium-term growth and development strategy for 2012-17 and its National Vision: Liberia Rising 2030, both of which are under preparation. The analysis is based on MAMS (Maquette for MDG [Millennium Development Goal]) Simulations, a computable...