A concept note about setting up an international program for studying the effects of the emergence of biofuels on global poverty and food security. 

The recent global expansion of biofuels production is an intense topic of discussion in both the popular and academic press. Much of the debate surrounding biofuels has focused on narrow issues of energy efficiency and fossil fuel substitution, to the exclusion of broader questions concerning the effects of large-scale biofuels development on commodity markets, land use patterns, and the global poor. There is reason to think these effects will be very large. The majority of poor people living in chronic hunger are net consumers of staple food crops; poor households spend a large share of their budget on starchy staples; and as a result, price hikes for staple agricultural commodities have the largest impact on poor consumers. For example, the rapidly growing use of corn for ethanol in the U.S. has recently sent corn prices soaring, boosting farmer incomes domestically but causing riots in the streets of Mexico City over tortilla prices. Preliminary analysis suggests that such price movements, which directly threaten hundreds of millions of households around the world, could be more than a passing phenomenon. Rapid biofuels development is occurring throughout the developed and developing world, transforming commodity markets and increasingly linking food prices to a volatile energy sector. Yet there remains little understanding of how these changes will affect global poverty and food security, and an apprehension on the part of many governments as to whether and how to participate in the biofuels revolution.

We propose an international collaborative effort to:

• Understand and quantify the effects of expanding biofuels production on agricultural commodity markets, food security, and poverty;
• Develop training programs and policy tools to harness the benefits and mitigate the damages from such expansion on both local and global scales; and
• Build an international network of scholars and government officials devoted to studying and managing biofuels development and its social consequences

As part of PESD's ongoing research on power sector reform, the program has focused on the special role of independent power projects (IPPs). Many countries institute reform with the goal of attracting private (usually foreign) investors in new generating capacity. IPPs, rather than across-the-board reform, are usually the mechanism employed; yet the IPP market has been highly volatile in the last decade and has evaporated in most countries in recent years.

Private investment in electricity generation in developing countries grew dramatically during the 1990s, only to decline equally dramatically in the wake of the Asian financial crisis and other troubles in the late 1990s. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University has undertaken a detailed review of the IPP experience in developing countries. The study has sought to identify the principal factors that explain the wide variation in outcomes for IPP investors and hosts. It also aims to identify lessons for the next wave in private investment in electricity generation.

This article presents the conclusions and analysis of the study of the experience of investment in greenfield IPPs in developing countries. The term "independent power producer" has been used to refer to several types of enterprises, but for this paper, "IPP" refers to a privately developed power plant that sells electricity to a public electricity grid, often under long term contract with a state utility. For this study and report, the lead actors in every IPP are private investors usually foreign, but often with local partners. The classic foreign-sponsored, project-financed IPP has taken root in more than fifty emerging countries that display wide variation in economic, political and social environments. The wide variation in settings for IPPs affords a special opportunity for researchers to probe systematically the critical factors that contribute to outcomes for host countries and for investors.

During 2004-06, the Program on Energy & Sustainable Development undertook a study of the experience of independent power producers ("IPPs") in developing countries. As part of the study, the Program sponsored a series of country studies. These papers detail the basic contours of the IPP experience in each country and discuss the country factors identified in the research protocol. Additionally, each paper presents the universe of greenfield IPPs in the country, identifies the significant characteristics across which these projects vary, and selects a small number for individual examination.

This paper summarizes the experiences of the countries and projects that were part of the IPP study. Additionally, the paper provides a concise statement of project outcomes and a brief statement of the rationale underlying the analysis of each project. In doing so, the paper aims to gather in one place the disparate outcomes that are discussed in a long series of working papers, thereby providing a transparent and accessible document that will facilitate further study and critique of the original coding for the study, as well as of the analysis of projects and countries.

This book provides a theory of the logic of survival of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of the most resilient autocratic regimes in the twentieth century. An autocratic regime hid behind the facade of elections that were held with clockwise precision. Although their outcome was totally predictable, elections were not hollow rituals. The PRI made millions of ordinary citizens vest their interests in the survival of the autocratic regime. Voters could not simply throw the 'rascals out of office' because their choices were constrained by a series of strategic dilemmas that compelled them to support the autocrats. The book also explores the factors that led to the demise of the PRI. The theory sheds light on the logic of 'electoral autocracies', among the most common type of autocracy and is the only systematic treatment in the literature today dealing with this form of autocracy.