Collaboration between local governments and businesses for poverty reduction has not yet been fully explored in China. Based on an in-depth investigation of two counties during the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, this study proposes a multilayered and relational approach to understanding how different levels of officials collaborate with business to reduce poverty. Elite bureaucrats at the county and township levels prefer a growth-oriented strategy for attracting large-scale enterprises to make investment. Their coalition with businesses has created profits and employment but also hindered authentic participation of small- and medium-sized businesses and villagers in their selected villages. In contrast, in villages that were not prioritized by elite bureaucrats, local officials could utilize their discretion and indigenous resources to exploit development opportunities and support small- and medium-sized businesses to reach poor villagers. This study unpacks China's multilevel system to understand the various forms of government–business collaboration and their implications for rural poverty reduction.

Strong geographical variations have been noted in the twinning rate (TWR). In general, the rate is high among people of African origin, intermediate among Europeans, and low among most Asiatic populations. In Europe, there tends to be a south–north cline, with a progressive increase in the TWR from south to north and a minimum around the Basque provinces. The highest TWRs in Europe have been found among the Nordic populations. Furthermore, within larger populations, small isolated subpopulations have been identified to have extreme, mainly high, TWRs. In the study of the temporal variation of the TWR in Norway, we consider the period from 1900 to 2014. The regional variation of the TWR in Norway is analyzed for the different counties for two periods, 1916–1926 and 1960–1988. Heterogeneity between the regional TWRs in Norway during 1916–1926 was found, but the goodness of fit for the alternative spatial models was only slight. The optimal regression model for the TWR in Norway has the longitude and its square as regressors. According to this model, the spatial variation is distributed in a west–east direction. For 1960–1988, no significant regional variation was observed. One may expect that the environmental and genetic differences between the counties in Norway have disappeared and that the regional TWRs have converged towards a common low level.

We investigate the determinants of organic farming in the United States. State-level data show that the organic farming sector has grown over the last decade, but growth has been very heterogeneous with few states accounting for most of the growth. Further analyses of county data reveal that favorable natural amenities, water for irrigation, and government payments have a positive effect on most measures of organic farming used here. Results further point out that organic farming operations are more popular among young farmers. Adjacency to metro areas is also an important determinant for the number of organic operations. Organic farming is more important for the agricultural sector of the areas that are somewhat remote but that does not appear to be the case for very remote rural areas.