Article

Resource Scarcity and Innovation: Can Poor Countries Attain Endogenous Growth?

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Edward Barbier and Thomas Homer-Dixon | Endogenous growth models have revived the debate over the role of technological innovation in economic growth and development. The consensus view is that institutional and policy failures prevent poor countries from generating or using new technological ideas to reap greater economic opportunities. However, this view omits the important contribution of natural-resource degradation and depletion to institutional instability

The End of Pop-economics

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with Robin Bienenstock | The current crisis in international markets highlights inadequacies in the way economists and other analysts think about the global economy.

Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of South Africa

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Valerie Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon | The causal relationship between environmental scarcities – the scarcity of renewable resources – and the outbreak of violent conflict is complex. This article analyses the link between South Africa’s environmental scarcity and violent conflict.

Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of Rwanda

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Valerie Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon | On April 6, 1994, President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane exploded in the skies above the Kigali region of Rwanda. Violence gripped the country. Between April and August of 1994, as many as 1 million people were killed and more than 2 million people became refugees.

How to Put a Brake on Currency Volatility

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In an address at Princeton University in 1971, the economist James Tobin proposed that a small tax be imposed on international currency transactions in order to dampen currency volatility.

What to Do with a “Soft” Degree in a Hard Job Market

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Every year the students in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto organize a “career night” for the 60-odd undergraduates in the program. The evening aims to answer the question: What can one “do” with a B.A. in this field?

Strategies for Studying Causation in Complex Ecological-Political Systems

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This paper shows that some commonly advocated methodological principles of modern political science are inappropriate for the study of complex ecological-political systems. It also provides conceptual tools for thinking about the causal roles of environmental and demographic factors, and it discusses various strategies for hypothesis and inference testing.

Correspondence: Environment and Security

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Professor Marc Levy of Princeton University has published several critiques of recent scholarship on environmental security, including one in International Security. Thomas Homer-Dixon responds to his comments.

The Myth of Global Water Wars

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At a meeting in Stockholm this past August, Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank’s Vice President for Environmentally Sustainable Development, released a new report on global water issues.