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The conditions of agricultural growth
TLDR
In this paper, Boserup argues that changes and improvements occur from within agricultural communities, and that improvements are governed not simply by external interference, but by those communities themselves using extensive analyses of the costs and productivity of the main systems of traditional agriculture.Abstract:
This book sets out to investigate the process of agrarian change from new angles and with new results. It starts on firm ground rather than from abstract economic theory. Upon its initial appearance, it was heralded as "a small masterpiece, which economic historians should read--and not simply quote"--Giovanni Frederico, Economic History Services. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth remains a breakthrough in the theory of agricultural development. In linking ethnography with economy, developmental studies reached new heights. Whereas "development" had been seen previously as the transformation of traditional communities by the introduction (or imposition) of new technologies, Ester Boserup argues that changes and improvements occur from within agricultural communities, and that improvements are governed not simply by external interference, but by those communities themselves Using extensive analyses of the costs and productivity of the main systems of traditional agriculture, Ester Boserup concludes that technical, economic, and social changes are unlikely to take place unless the community concerned is exposed to the pressure of population growth.read more
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The Age of Migration
Stephen Castles,Mark J. Miller +1 more
TL;DR: The third edition of the 3rd edition of as mentioned in this paper is the most comprehensive survey of international migration in the post-Cold-War era of globalization, focusing on the formation of ethnic minorities.
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Reversal of fortune: geography and institutions in the making of the modern world income distribution*
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the reversal in relative incomes of colonized countries during the past 500 years resulted from societies with good institutions taking advantage of the opportunity to industrialize.
Journal ArticleDOI
Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions
TL;DR: In this article, the authors highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions, and argue that a systematic analysis of local-scale land use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land use changes.
Book
World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030: An Fao Perspective
TL;DR: The FAO's latest assessment of the long-term outlook for the world's food supplies, nutrition and agriculture is presented in this paper, where the projections cover supply and demand for the major agricultural commodities and sectors, including fisheries and forestry.
Journal ArticleDOI
Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world
Erle C. Ellis,Navin Ramankutty +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented the first characterization of terrestrial biomes based on global patterns of sustained, direct human interaction with ecosystems and identified the anthropogenic biomes through empirical analysis of global population, land use, and land cover.