1. This paper was commissioned by the Trade and Markets Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to address the relationship between food aid and commercial international food trade as background to an anticipated OECD study on the export competition aspects...

In this paper I give an account of development debates of the past two decades, focusing on the Washington Consensus and on the broader economic development discourse in historical context. Section 2 gives a basic account of the Washington consensus and how its meaning changed from the original...

Geologic estimates of remaining global petroleum resources place about 50% in the Persian Gulf. Production costs are estimated at $5 per barrel there, and $15 per barrel in the North Sea and Alaska. Using mathematical methods derived from depletion theory is utilized to explain the $15-$20 per...

Sustainability standards for biofuel production calculated via life cycle accounting (LCA) require a certain reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to gasoline. Recently it has been shown that LCA gives biased results and should be extended to incorporate indirect land use change...

This paper introduces a significant new collection of papers on monetary policy in emerging market economies, written by leading analysts and policy makers. Does existing economic theory provide lessons that are pertinent for designing effective monetary policy frameworks in emerging markets?...

Can the economic theory of depletion be reconciled with low petroleum? This paper uses a revision of the theory, which reflects demand functions that rise in response to increasing world population and income. The magnitude of producers’ and consumers’ surplus is estimated under both...

Over the past decade, I have been involved with an “Exposure and Dialogue Program” (EDP), which literally exposes analysts and policy makers to the lived reality of poor women’s lives by getting them to spend a few days experiencing that life. After each EDP, participants are encouraged to...

By many estimates, the world has just crossed the point where more than half the world’s population is urban, a trend driven by rapid urbanization in developing countries. Urban centers offer economies of scale in terms of productive enterprise and public investment. Cities are social melting...

International trade of horticultural commodities is increasingly important in many regions of the world, yet import patterns of key horticultural crops are understudied in the agricultural economics literature. Using data between 1991 and 2005, we estimate the drivers of per capita import demand...