Part I. Understanding Secularization: 1. The secularization debate 2. Measuring secularization 3. Comparing secularization worldwide Part II. Case Studies of Religion and Politics: 4. The puzzle of secularization in the United States and Western Europe 5. A religious revival in post-communist Europe? 6. Religion and politics in the Muslim world Part III. The Consequences of Secularization: 7. Religion, the Protestant ethic, and moral values 8. Religious organizations and social capital 9. Religious parties and electoral behavior Part IV. Conclusions: 10. Secularization and its consequences 11. Re-examining the theory of existential security 12. Re-examining evidence for the security thesis.

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Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide

It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. They also fail to explain why institutions are influenced by the past, why it is that they can sometimes change, why they differ so much from society to society, and why it is hard to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them. This 2006 book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration. It presents a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics.

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Institutions and the path to the modern economy

Natural flood plains are among the most biologically productive and diverse ecosystems on earth. Globally, riverine flood plains cover > 2 × 106 km2, however, they are among the most threatened ecosystems. Floodplain degradation is closely linked to the rapid decline in freshwater biodiversity; the main reasons for the latter being habitat alteration, flow and flood control, species invasion and pollution. In Europe and North America, up to 90% of flood plains are already ‘cultivated’ and therefore functionally extinct. In the developing world, the remaining natural flood plains are disappearing at an accelerating rate, primarily as a result of changing hydrology. Up to the 2025 time horizon, the future increase of human population will lead to further degradation of riparian areas, intensification of the hydrological cycle, increase in the discharge of pollutants, and further proliferation of species invasions. In the near future, the most threatened flood plains will be those in south-east Asia, Sahelian Africa and North America. There is an urgent need to preserve existing, intact flood plain rivers as strategic global resources and to begin to restore hydrologic dynamics, sediment transport and riparian vegetation to those rivers that retain some level of ecological integrity. Otherwise, dramatic extinctions of aquatic and riparian species and of ecosystem services are faced within the next few decades.

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Riverine flood plains: present state and future trends

This paper explores the theoretical and empirical literature to examine the use by different social groups of informal sources of information provided by friends, relatives, and acquaintances during job search and its consequences for the job market. It also addresses the role of network structure and size, the resource endowments of contacts, and nature of the links between contacts to explain differences in the effects of job information networks. In doing so, the paper also turns to the sociology literature on job information networks and provides an economic perspective on such sociological concepts as strong versus weak ties, inbreeding, distance from structural holes, etc. The paper distinguishes between models of exogenous job information networks, that is where individuals obtain job-related information through a given social structure, and endogenous job information networks, which are social networks that result from individuals' uncoordinated actions. The paper pays special attention to such issues as physical and social proximity and sharing of information and discusses them in the context of the recent social interactions and neighborhood effects literature. Finally, the paper outlines a model that integrates job information networks, where interactions occur in business cycle frequencies, with the dynamics of human capital formation, which include the joint effects of parental, community and neighborhood human capital, and are set in life cycle frequencies, for the purpose of organizing suggestions for future research and examining earned income inequality.

Job Information Networks, Neighborhood Effects, and Inequality

This essay looks at the literature on social capital from the perspective of game theory. It reviews Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam and Social Capital: A Multifaceted Approach edited by Partha Dasgupta and Ismail Serageldin.

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Can We Trust Social Capital

This book provides an account of the current understanding of social capital. It covers both theoretical and empirical studies, and the concept is debated throughout. Also included in this volume is the classic 1987 article by the late James Coleman, Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, which formed the basis for the development of social capital as an organizing concept in the social sciences. The volume is divided into areas that cover the analytical foundations and institutional and statistical analyses of social capital.

Social capital : a multifaceted perspective

Biotechnology can contribute to future food security if it benefits sustainable small-farm agriculture in developing countries. Presently, agrobiotechnology research cites ethical, safety, and intellectual property rights issues. Protection of intellectual property rights encourages private sector investment in agrobiotechnology, but in developing countries the needs of smallholder farmers and environmental conservation are unlikely to attract private funds. Public investment will be needed, and new and imaginative public-private collaboration can make the gene revolution beneficial to developing countries. This is crucial for the well-being of today's hungry people and future generations.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/285/5426/387.full.pdf

Biotechnology and Food Security in the 21st Century

This monograph describes the position of the World Bank concerning sustainability and the wealth of nations; it discusses the Bank's efforts to more rigorously define the concept of sustainability, to make it more operational, and to take it into account in all areas of public policy. It recommends as a necessary step conducting detailed case studies, and based on these, addressing the issue of social capital, with integration of the concepts of poverty and equity in assessing the viability of the measurements that are being made of the state of a country. Other issues to be addressed include the quality of the natural capital, and local and supranational effects. The report states that pragmatism has to be the abiding concern in the development of new measurements and methodologies, as well as in the pursuit of policies and investments. Operationally, this pragmatism translates into: (i) encouraging the growth of natural capital by reducing the level of current exploitation; (ii) investing in projects to relieve pressure on natural capital stocks by expanding cultivated natural capital; and (iii) increasing investment in human resources, particularly those for the poor.

Sustainability and the wealth of nations : first steps in an ongoing journey

http://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140673622015859/pdf

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic

This is abstracted from a Keynote Address delivered at the VIIIth World Congress on Water Resources in Cairo on November 22, 1994. Dr. Serageldin is Vice President for Environmentally Sustainable Development and Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research at the World Bank. Since joining the bank in 1972, he has designed and managed a broad array of poverty-focused projects in developing countries. He was educated at Cairo University and Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. Please note that the source for all graphs, charts, tables, and figurers is the World Bank, unless otherwise noted

Ismail Serageldin

Papers

Social capital : a multifaceted perspective

Biotechnology and Food Security in the 21st Century

Sustainability and the wealth of nations : first steps in an ongoing journey

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic

Water Resources Management: A New Policy for a Sustainable Future