The Dominican Republic-Central American
Free Trade Agreement with the United States aims to create a
free trade zone for economic development. The Agreement is
expected to intensify commerce and investment among the
participating countries. This paper analyzes the changes in
the production and trading patterns in 2-digit manufacturing
sectors with the goal of understanding the short-term
environmental implications of the Dominican Republic-Central

Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President, addresses the
biggest threat to the poor around the world: high and
volatile food prices. The Bank released an updated Food Price Watch
that underscores the need for the G20 to put food
first. The key driver behind the upward spiral in the food
price index has been sharp rises in the prices of wheat,
maize, sugar, and oils. He discusses the global food
price hikes which have pushed about 44 million people into

This paper was based on a desk review of
the literature relating to best practice in public policy
supporting business incubation, supplemented by four
national case studies covering Brazil, Ma-laysia, New
Zealand and South Africa. These country studies were
prepared through engage-ment of stakeholders, site visits
and other sources of primary and secondary information
collection. In the context of the study, we focused on best

This essay first sets out the
"business model" problems entailed by corruption
and their effects as well as implications for economic
growth. Key issues are the need for secrecy and co-operation
with partners in crime. Dealing with these leads to behavior
which is ostensibly bizarre and undermines economic
efficiency, but is in fact a rational way of managing
corrupt practices. However, different economic policies can

Over the past decade, faster growth and
smarter social policy have reversed the trend in Latin
America's poverty. Too slowly and insufficiently, but
undeniably, the percentage of Latinos who are poor has at
long last begun to fall. This has shifted the political and
policy debates from poverty toward inequality, something to
be expected in a region that exhibits the world's most
regressive distribution of development outcomes such as

The agricultural season in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BH) begins earlier than in most European
countries, shipping costs are relatively low, and land and
labor prices are more favorable than in other southern
European countries. As a result, the country's
agriculture sector should be well positioned to compete on
the export markets. With 20.6 percent of all employed in BH,
agriculture remains an important sector for employment,

Lessons from six case studies illustrate
the complex relationships between international trade,
vulnerable ecologies and the poor. The studies, taken from
Africa, Asia and Latin America and conducted by local
researchers, are set in places where the poor live in close
proximity to ecologies that are important to global
conservation efforts, and focus on the cascading
consequences of trade policy for local livelihoods and

India is the largest groundwater user in
the world, with an estimated usage of around 230 cubic
kilometers per year, more than a quarter of the global
total. With more than 60 percent of irrigated agriculture
and 85 percent of drinking water supplies dependent on it,
groundwater is a vital resource for rural areas in India.
Reliance of urban and industrial waste supplies on
groundwater is also becoming increasingly significant in

The carbon market endured its most challenging year to date in 2009. The global economic crisis, which started in late 2008 and intensified early in 2009, negatively impacted both the demand and supply sides of the market. As industrial output plummeted the demand for carbon assets fell. Yet even as global GDP declined by 0.6 percent in 2009, and at a more perilous rate of 3.2 percent in industrialized economies, the carbon market demonstrated resilience.

This paper examines whether and to what
extent amendments in inheritance legislation impact
women's physical and human capital investments, using
disaggregated household level data from India. The authors
use inheritance patterns over three generations of
individuals to assess the impact of changes in the Hindu
Succession Act that grant daughters equal coparcenary birth
rights in joint family property that were denied to

Kosovo's economic growth in the
past decade has been solid, yet, with a gross domestic
product (GDP) per capita of 1,760, the country remains one
of the poorest in Europe. The end of the conflict, output
was growing at double-digit rates, driven by the
donor-funded reconstruction efforts. Since 2005, annual
growth has decelerated to below 5 percent. However, the
other countries in Southeast Europe have been growing

The report starts with an introductory chapter that sets the stage for the issues and provides a short historical background on the development of the private sector in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), drawing on anecdotes and stories heard from many entrepreneurs and public officials consulted throughout the region during the preparation of this report. The core of the analysis is then presented in three parts. Part one assesses the performance of private sector development in the region from a macroeconomic and microeconomic standpoint (chapter two).