Investment in natural capital is increasingly necessary and urgent considering the increasing loss of global bio- diversity and the associated social and economic losses. Ecosystem services are tools for quantifying the stock of natural capital and there is great concern about their assessment...

Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman recently rendered a summary verdict on the post-Soviet Russian transition experience finding that the Federation had become a normal country with the west's assistance, and predicting that it would liberalize and develop further like other successful nations...