Policies that have helped reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon over the past two decades have mostly failed to stop forest degradation: a slower and potentially more dangerous form of destruction. Unlike deforestation, where whole areas of forests are cleared for farming, industry or infrastructure, a degraded forest still has trees standing. However, it has been so damaged by fire, illegal logging, fragmentation, droughts and over-hunting that it has lost much of its ecological value. 

By 2050, degradation could affect the entire Brazilian Amazon, but it has barely featured in the policies meant to protect it.

A study shows that enrollees in Michigan's Medicaid expansion program had large drops in medical debt in collections and in rates of sub-prime credit scores

After Sweden removed inheritance and gift taxes in 2005, private firms with potential family successors grew faster, invested more, and paid higher corporate taxes than firms without natural heirs, according to a new white paper from the Stockholm School of Economics. The study adds empirical evidence in a policy debate often dominated by ideology and comes as several European countries debate inheritance tax reforms.