How have America's largest cities managed to adapt to the economic and demographic changes of the late Twentieth Century? To shed light on the transition, this latest volume presents standout papers spanning the life of Research in Urban Economics. The work includes excerpts from a 1980 federal report and two current papers that update the coverage. These selections provide a sparkling cross-section of the scholarship on urban economics and policy over the past generation.

In the wake of the dot-com shakeout of 2000, the time is ripe for a reappraisal of how information technology (IT) has created new environments for businesses and workers in the US and Europe. This book draws on the experiences of the 1990s to discern successful strategies for competing and winning in the New Economy. The lessons are most sharply defined in specific regional clusters of innovation. Accordingly, contributors are mainly on-the-scene observers and practitioners from Silicon Valley, New England and Europe. The common theme is the attempt to find innovative ways (in part through non-traditional business models) to create and build increasingly networked, flexible, participatory companies. Drawing on the notion of entrepreneurial behavior as "the pursuit of goals that are beyond the means currently available," the collection examines management, leadership, and innovation issues in start-up and established companies alike. While recognizing the hard realities of the new competition, the book highlights emerging win-win scenarios. Enabled in part by the new IT systems, these new approaches help companies succeed by seeking and rewarding decision-making, initiative and creativity on the part of all employees.

"Agricultural Development Policy: Concepts and Experiences," prepared under the aegis of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), presents a fresh and comprehensive look at agricultural development policy. It provides a clear, systematic review of important classes of policy issues in developing countries and discusses the emerging international consensus on viable approaches to those issues. The text is unique in its coverage and depth, and it Cites policy experiences and applied studies in eighty countries. Develops the conceptual foundations for policies. Illustrates policies that have worked and those that have not, with explanations of why. Summarises hundreds of references from the literature on agricultural development policies. Provides guidance for policy makers and policy analysts through both real-world examples and conceptual frameworks.

Topics covered include agriculture's role in economic development, objectives and instruments of agricultural policy, linkages between macroeconomic and agricultural policies, sectoral policies related to agricultural prices, the role of government in the sector, gender issues in agriculture, land tenure policies, water management, agricultural financial policies, agricultural technology development and dissemination, and agricultural development strategies and rural development issues.

The book is suitable for use in university courses in agricultural and economic development, international development, natural resource management, and specialised topics in agriculture, and it serves as a valuable reference tool for policy makers and other professionals and researchers in the field of internationalagricultural development.