Federal Development Policy Research Articles

Политика развития в восприятии социальных акторов региона

This article summarizes results of the field research conducted by the author in June 2019 in the Pskov Region. Based on the analysis of in-depth interviews with representatives of authorities, educational institutions, culture and public organizations, the author draws some conclusions about the perception of federal development policy in the region.

A Path to Smarter Federal Leadership in Economic Development: Learning, Leveraging, and Linking

A panel of the National Academy of Public Administration proposes refraining the federal role in economic development. Drawing on field research in 10 communities, the panel found that federal efforts often suffer from fixation on small, unrelated projects that may benefit one community or constituency but, in the aggregate, do not add up to much. The panel proposes that federal development policy focus on (a) learning-creating a better understanding about how state, regional, and local economies function and about which development strategies work best; (b) leveraging-providing incentives to counteract pressures on state and local development activities to focus on highly visible projects in prosperous areas rather than on long-term regional development strategies that would benefit disadvantaged as well as prosperous people; and (c) linking-consolidating federal programs and making it easier for states and regions to obtain the flexibility to use federal resources effectively.

The Causes of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

This article analyzes the determinants of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon using data from 316 municipalities (counties) during the period 1975 to 1985. Two different measures of deforestation are derived, one based on satellite photos and one based on land surveys. The two measures are consistent with each other but are more conservative than most estimates found in previous studies. Both deforestation measures are used in a series of deforestation regressions, which indicate that local economic forces are now more important than federal development policy. Thus, although the federal government cer tainly initiated the deforestation process with ambitious road-building and development programs, it may now have lost control to local market forces.