Population growth in rural areas characterized by high levels of natural amenities has recently received substantial research attention. A noted concern with amenity-driven rural population growth is its potential to raise local costs-of-living while yielding only low-wage service sector employment for long-term residents. The work presented here empirically models long-term rural residents' ec...

This paper takes a fresh look at the impact of financial development on economic growth. We allow for parameter heterogeneity and nonlinearities in a completely nonparametric fashion using recently developed generalized kernel methods. Our findings suggest that financial development (an appropriate index of it) impacts growth in a nonlinear fashion. We find that financial development has a larg...

World food and agricultural production will have to increase substantially if the demand created by the combination of growing populations and rising incomes is to be met. Large-scale improvements in technology are needed if production targets are to be reached. But now that energy is so expensive, the new agricultural techniques and technologies must be as energy-efficient as possible. Researc...

Global demands on agricultural land are increasing due to population growth, dietary changes and the use of biofuels. Their effect on food security is to reduce humans' ability to cope with the uncertainties of global climate change. In light of the 2008 food crisis, to secure reliable future access to sufficient agricultural land, many nations and corporations have begun purchasing large tract...

This paper outlines the importance of the Millennium Development Goals for urban populations, and some reasons for concern regarding their implementation. It argues that the institutional structures and processes of international donors and national governments can be incompatible with the effective achievement of poverty reduction. It also explains that the relevance of the Millennium Developm...

This article reviews 98 aggregate and multilevel studies examining the associations between income inequality and health. Overall, there seems to be little support for the idea that income inequality is a major, generalizable determinant of population health differences within or between rich countries. Income inequality may, however, directly influence some health outcomes, such as homicide in...

Stimulated by the growing body of literature relating economic inequalities to inequalities in health, this article explores relationships between various economic attributes of communities and mortality rates among 24 coastal communities in British Columbia, Canada. Average household income, a measure of community wealth, was negatively related and the incidence of low incomes, a measure of po...

Notes The use and promotion of wellness programs, by health insurers and others, has been increasing. The Commonwealth Fund Issue Brief looks at the experience in Germany where participation in such programs almost doubled between 2004 and 2008, reaching one-quarter of the publicly insured population. An evaluation of one large wellness program there found that it reduced costs. Population-leve...

The demand for water for food production is rising rapidly. Although during the last 50 years food production met and even surpassed population growth, the forecast for the future shows a different picture. The combination of key scientific developments responsible for the green revolution, and large scale investment in water infrastructure such as dams and irrigation systems played a significa...

Imagine a world where the demand for food and other agricultural products is constant or increases regularly as populations and incomes grow. Land can only be used for agriculture or forest. Then the only ways to keep more land in forest are to increase agricultural yields, reduce population growth or depress incomes. The amount of land devoted to agriculture equals the total demand for agricul...