Although increased global demand for
land has led to renewed interest in African land tenure, few
models to address these issues quickly and at the required
scale have been identified or evaluated. The case of
Rwanda's nation-wide and relatively low-cost land
tenure regularization program is thus of great interest.
This paper evaluates the short-term impact (some 2.5 years
after completion) of the pilots undertaken to fine-tune the

Land assets have become an important
source of financing capital investments by subnational
governments in developing countries. Land assets, often with
billions of dollars per transaction, rival and sometimes
surpass subnational borrowing or fiscal transfers for
capital spending. While reducing the uncertainty surrounding
future debt repayment capacity, the use of land-based
revenues for financing infrastructure can entail substantial

The World Development Report (WDR) has
become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the
circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's
motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the
first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief
background on the circumstances of newly independent
developing countries and summarize some of the main strands
of the emerging field of development economics. This

A Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) was
undertaken to assess the returns to land management
practices of major land use types, namely forests,
rangelands, and selected crops (rice, maize, cotton, and
millet). Also the public expenditure on SLM was reviewed
and an assessment carried out how the expenditure is aligned
to land policies and how it is targeted to land degradation
hotspots. The results show that, without some form of

As the world recovers only slowly from
the 2008 financial crisis and Europe is facing a looming
debt crisis, concerns have increased that the "new
normal" -- a period of high unemployment, low returns
on investment, high risks, and low growth -- may become
protracted in advanced economies. If growth remains weak,
unemployment rates and debt levels will be slow to recede.
Consequently, the global recovery may continue to be fragile

This paper analyzes the trends and
evolution of public spending in the agriculture sector in
Indonesia, as well as the impact of public spending on
agricultural growth. It finds that, in line with empirical
work undertaken in other countries, public spending on
agriculture and irrigation during the period 1976-2006 had a
positive impact on agricultural growth, while public
spending on fertilizer subsidies had the opposite effect.

Over the last three decades,
China's product, labor, and capital markets have become
gradually more integrated within its borders, although
integration has been significantly slower for capital
markets. There remains a significant urban-rural divide, and
Chinese cities tend to be under-sized by international
standards. China has also integrated globally, initially
through the Special Economic Zones on the coast as launching

The relatively slow pace of
Nigeria's development has often been attributed to the
phenomenon of the resource curse whereby the nature of the
state as a "rentier" dilutes accountability for
development and political actors are able to manipulate
institutions to sustain poor governance. The impact of the
political elite's resource-control and allocation of
revenues on core democratic mechanisms is central to

This paper provides an overview of the
literature on tax morale and tax compliance. Most of the
material here is based on research that I have conducted
together with my co-authors over the last 10 years. Europe
has a dominant place in this paper. Sometimes results
derived from other countries are discussed that could be
relevant for Europe. The overall findings show the
importance of accountability, democratic governance,

The World Bank Group has a unique
opportunity to match the increases in financing for
agriculture with a sharper focus on improving agricultural
growth and productivity in agriculture-based economies,
notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. Greater effort will be needed
to connect sectoral interventions and achieve synergies from
public and private sector interventions; to build capacity
and knowledge exchange; to take stock of experience in

Although charcoal is the single most
important energy source for millions of urban dwellers in
Tanzania, being used by all tiers of society from laborers
to politicians, it seems to be politically neglected and
even unwanted, given that it is not considered as a possible
mean to achieve long-term sustainable development, for
example as a low-carbon growth option contributing to energy
security, sustainable forest management, and poverty

Input subsidy programs carry support as
instruments to increase agricultural productivity, provided
they are market-smart. This requires especially proper
targeting to contain the fiscal pressure, with decentralized
targeting of input vouchers currently the instrument of
choice. Nonetheless, despite clear advantages in
administrative costs, the fear of elite capture persists.
These fears are borne out in the experience from the 2008