Ten Principles of the New Environmentalism
Andrew Steer
A quiet revolution has been under way during the 1990s as environmental sustainability has gradually become an important theme in policymaking around the world.

Rural Development, Agriculture, and Food Security
Wendy S. Ayres and Alex F. McCalla
The fundamental challenge the world faces is to ensure that the hundreds of millions of families living in poverty have access to enough food to maintain a healthy life.

Cities in the Developing World: Agenda for Action Following Habitat II
Patricia Annez and Alfred Friendly
In developing countries' burgeoning cities, affluence and poverty are pitted against each other in a race to shape the future. What steps can governments take to reduce poverty, improve the urban environment, and achieve sustainable development?

Expanding the Measure of Wealth
John A. Dixon and Kirk Hamilton
Expanding measurements of national wealth to embrace natural and human resources can help to guide policies for sustainable development.

Capital Markets

Global Financial Markets: Moving Up the Learning Curve
IMF Research Department Staff
After being burned by some costly crises, players in international financial markets are learning from past mistakes and finding new ways to minimize risk.

Foreign Exchange Markets: Structure and Systemic Risks
Laura E. Kodres
Foreign exchange trading involves such large cross-border settlements that a failure by one party to deliver the currency needed for a single settlement could disrupt the global financial system. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce settlement risk.

Central Banking: The Challenges Ahead

Maintaining Price Stability
Stanley Fischer
The enduring challenge facing central banks is to fight inflation. Central banks can best meet this challenge if they are independent and adopt a low inflation target with some flexibility for price shocks in recognition of the short-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

Also in this Issue

The Difficult Art of Economic Forecasting
Paula R. De Masi
Economic forecasting is an art, not a science. Economic outcomes are often influenced by unanticipated events, and data may be inadequate, particularly in developing countries.

What Caused Sub-Saharan Africa's Marginalization in World Trade?
Alexander J. Yeats, Azita Amjadi, Ulrich Reincke, and Francis Ng
Sub-Saharan Africa's share in world exports has been shrinking. The evidence suggests that anticompetitive domestic policies rather than trade barriers played a key role in this decline.

Private Sector Development in the Visegrad Countries
Michael S. Borish and Michel Noël
The Visegrad countries are enjoying solid economic growth driven by vibrant new private sectors. To make a successful transition to a market economy, however, they will need to push ahead with financial, legal, and regulatory reforms.

Departments

Letter from the Editor

World Economy in Transition
International Capital Markets Update

Development Focus
How Do the Urban Poor Manage in an Economic Crisis?

Readers' Comments

Index 1996—Volume 33

Books

Trends in Business Organization: Do Participation and Cooperation Increase Competitiveness? edited by Horst Siebert
reviewed by Robert R. Miller

Foreign Participation in China's Banking and Securities Markets by Francis A. Lees and K. Thomas Liaw
reviewed by Marc Quintyn

Privatizing Monopolies: Lessons from the Telecommunications and Transport Sectors in Latin America, edited by Ravi Ramamurti
reviewed by Antonio Estache

Investment in Women's Human Capital, edited by T. Paul Schultz
reviewed by Shahid Khandker

Assessing Educational Practices: The Contribution of Economics, edited by William E. Becker and William J. Baumol
reviewed by George Psacharopoulos

The Japanese Civil Service and Economic Development: Catalysts of Change, edited by Hyung-Ki Kim, Michio Muramatsu, T. J. Pempel, and Kozo Yamamura
reviewed by Mark Lutz

Non-Governmental Organizations and Rural Poverty Alleviation by Roger C. Riddell, Mark Robinson, and others
reviewed by Peter Lanjouw

Rural Change in South Asia: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh by Gilbert Etienne
reviewed by John McIntire