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'Wising Up to the Costs of Aging' looks at how falling fertility and rising life expectancy have combined to threaten the ability of many countries to provide a decent standard of living for the old without imposing a crushing burden on the young. In our lead article, Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason say that while population aging in rich industrial countries as well as in some middle- and lower-income countries will challenge public and private budgets in many ways, a combination of reduced consumption, postponed retirement, increased asset holdings, and greater investment in human capital should

Prize or Penalty: When Sports Help Economies Score"" looks at why countries vie to host the world's most costly sporting events. And, in a series of articles on ""After the Crisis,"" we discuss why some countries were hit harder than others; how were shocks transmitted round the world, and whether protectionist pressures might intensify in 2010. As usual, we take on a number of hot topics, including housing prices, bankers' bonuses, Ponzi schemes, and inflation targeting. In ""Picture This"" we see that the number of hungry is on the rise, topping 1 billion. Our regular ""People in Economics

During the French Revolution almost all monasteries and abbeys were suppressed and their possessions seized. Yet after the French Revolution many religious institutes were very successful in re-establishing themselves, sometimes accumulating large patrimonies, against the background of often hostile political forces.This book deals with the question of how the religious orders and congregations rebuilt their patrimony, a necessary prerequisite for the growth of the number of religious, educational and charitable services.The authors discuss the (real or supposed) wealth, the financial structur