Does decentralization enhance service delivery and poverty reduction? Drawing on cutting edge research, expert contributors address this fundamental question facing policy-makers in developing as well as advanced countries. This timely book builds upon insights on the recent developments in the...

The purpose of this essay is to argue that process-regarding preferences or social norms are pervasive in traditional village communities, yet are subject to gradual erosion under the influence of new forces, particularly population growth and market penetration. This is illustrated with respect...

Title ?' Growth and Poverty Reduction in Developing and Transition CountriesAbstract ?' The aim of the paper is to evaluate economic growth rates required indifferentes regions of the world to reach the millenium development goal of halvingglobal poverty rate by 2015. Current situation of...

The standard view of economists is that formalisation of private rights in land is a prerequisite of economic growth, especially so in conditions of acute population pressure and agricultutal commercialisation. That stage has been reached in many regions of the African continent, hence the...

In Senegal, we encountered a situation in which a minority group of migrant fishermen had completely different sets of expectations regarding a collective action depending on the location where they operated. In one village expectations were pessimistic, while in the other village they were...

If we understand well the individualization of land tenure rules under conditions of growing land scarcity and increased market integration, much less is known about the mode of evolution of the family farms possessing the land. Inspired by first-hand evidence from West Africa, this paper argues...

We build a simple model of legal dualism in which a pro-poor legal reform, under certain conditions, causes the conflicting custom to go some way toward producing the change intended by the legislator. It then acts as an "outside anchor" that exerts a "magnet effect" on the custom. We illustrate...

Does culture matter? This question has taken on added significance since fundamentalist revivalism has recently gained ground in different parts of the world. The old controversy between Max Weber and Karl Marx, which centres around the extent to which cultural factors such as social norms and...