Political Ecology

The growing interest has prompted the World Bank to launch its own research into how developing nations could benefit from the foreign money. The full report is due any day now but the release has already been delayed several times. A leaked draft suggested that so far, wealthy investors have largely threatened local resources and [...]

Our claim in this paper is that not being identified as the data source might cause harm to a person or group. Therefore, in some cases the default of anonymisation should be replaced by a careful deliberation, together with research subjects, of how to handle the issues of identification and confidentiality. Our prime example in [...]

Selecting a site that meets the technical requirements for a concentrating solar power plant (CSP) is a very critical exercise. This paper points out crucial factors and provides guidelines regarding the selection of suitable sites. It especially focuses on Sahelian countries which have their own climatic peculiarities. These countries, characterized by low access to electricity, [...]

The results show increasing global trade with global direct material trade flows reaching about 10 billion tonnes in 2005, corresponding to a physical trade volume of about 20 billion tonnes (adding both total imports and total exports). The share from European countries is declining, mainly in favour of Asian countries. The dominant traded commodity in [...]

This article draws on recent work in market design to evaluate the conditions under which a market for ideas or technology (MfTs) will emerge and operate efficiently. As highlighted by Roth (2007), effective market design must ensure three basic principles: market thickness, lack of congestion, and market safety. Roth also highlights the importance of dealing [...]

Climate change mitigation is considered as a high priority internationally and is placed in the top of the agenda for most politicians and decision makers. The key challenge is that low-carbon sustainable technologies need to be adopted both by developed as well as developing countries, in an effort to avoid past unsustainable practices and being [...]

There are at least 1 billion poor people living with chronic undernourishment, and the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goal of substantially reducing the world’s hungry by 2015 will not be met. The developing world’s poor are experiencing the effects of higher commodity prices, and declining agricultural productivity growth is exacerbating the problem. Next week, [...]