Twentieth‐century rural England: A case for ‘peasant studies'?

Reed and others have argued for the continuing existence of a peasantry in nineteenth‐century England. The present article uses the instance of an upland Yorkshire area to suggest that a ‘peasantry’ continued there until the mid‐twentieth century sustained and to some extent re‐shaped by trends in the national agricultural economy. Family‐centred farming on small acreages, low rents and capital inputs, flexible attitudes to work and the dual economy proved efficient mechanisms for surmounting economic conditions which were often disadvantagous to larger farmers. Investigation of other areas of England for similar phenomena is invited.     

Is there a long‐run relationship between population growth and living standards? The case of India

This note examines the existence of a long‐run, cointegrating relationship between population and per capita GDP in India for 1950–93. Unit root tests show that per capita GDP is integrated of order one while population is integrated of order zero; further, estimation of the bi‐variate relationship using the cointegration procedure of Johansen shows that no long‐run relationship exists. Thus, population growth neither causes per capita income growth nor is caused by it. A corollary is that population growth neither stimulates per capita income growth nor detracts from it.     

Economic partnering with the poor: why local governments should work with community-based development organizations to promote economic development

Much of conventional economic development ends up as a transfer of wealth from the public sector to successful firms. Instead, local governments would be better off working to support the efforts of community-based development organizations to expand the economic pie for those most in need. Suggestions are made of ways to bring about equity development programs that would help those most in need rather than merely subsidizing established businesses.