Wetlands are critical habitats for birds. However, wetlands are being degraded at an accelerating rate due to global human activity, and a disproportionate fraction of wetland-dependent bird species are in decline. We evaluated the conservation value of a new Ramsar site, Guangdong Haifeng Wetlands, China, for birds, by comparing bird communities (using line transect data) in 3 different distri...

The authors of this brief interviewed stakeholders in states with high-ranking and low-ranking health system performance, according to The Commonwealth Fund's State Scorecard on Health System Performance. Findings suggest there are market, political, and cultural characteristics that can help or hinder health system improvement. High-performing states are more likely to have: (1) a history of c...

This study examines the influence of financial intermediation on fertility rate and labor allocation decisions. A panel Vector Autoregression model using three variables of interest, specifically, financial intermediation, fertility, and industrial employment data in 87 countries, was estimated. This convenient methodology allows the relationship between the variables to change over time. Fi...

The challenges of rapid urbanisation in large parts of Africa are beyond the capacity of local government to manage. The paper explores the arguments for a national urban policy to complement local strategies, reflecting the unique power of the central state and the special circumstances of cities. With appropriate support, urbanisation could become a more positive force for economic and human ...

Many rural communities are examining nature tourism options, such as birdwatching (birding), as an economic development strategy. Unfortunately, public media stories, tourism professionals, and biologists often describe birders as a homogeneous group of serious, dedicated, and even fanatical visitors willing to spend large sums of money in their pursuit. Consistent with past research, we conten...

Ever since the industrial revolution opened the vistas of a new age, the process of industrialization has been at the core of the economic development of all countries. In a simple sense, industrialization means replacement of human labor by machinery to manufacture goods. In this way it induces a shift from home (craft) to factory based production. In a more rational sense, it is a process whe...

Both the Republic of Ireland and Taiwan have followed distinct developmental nation-building projects of economic development since the 1950s. Both latedeveloping countries have since transformed from predominantly agricultural societies to ones characterised by the rapid expansion of human capital and high levels of recent immigration. The main focus of the paper is upon explaining the influen...

Is democracy inherently a good thing? And do democratic institutions facilitate economic development? It appears reasonable to answer the first question affirmatively: democracy is a good thing because it facilitates free human choice and it furthers the good of political participation. But the answer to the latter question is an empirical one, and there is debate within the development field a...

There has been a growing concern with the adverse impacts of economic development upon the environment in recent years and a concomitant response in terms of policy initiatives. The policy discourse of sustainable development proposes that economic development and the environment can be integrated to give rise to “win-win” outcomes. Many policy initiatives have been developed at the urban, regi...

In the wave of globalization, as a way of the international transfer of capital, outsourcing is developing very rapidly. There are many researches on the economic effects of outsourcing, this article use the China's economic data during the economic development and build a regression model of the economic effect, and analysis the four effect of outsourcing on our country. The results show that ...