What is economic growth? And why is it so important?
The goods and services that we all need are not just there – they need to be produced – and growth means that their quality and quantity increase.
Latest:Our latest articles, updates and announcements
The Our World in Data COVID-19 vaccination dataset has been published in the academic journal, Nature
Our free, open-access dataset tracking global COVID-19 vaccinations has been published in Nature Human Behaviour.We just published our new work on Coral Reefs
Explore the research on coral reefs. This is part of our latest collection of work on Biodiversity and Wildlife.Where does the plastic in our oceans come from?
Which countries and rivers emit the most plastic to the ocean? What does this mean for solutions to tackle plastic pollution?We just published our new collection of work on Biodiversity
Explore our new collection of work on the topic of biodiversity and wildlife.Wild mammals have declined by 85% since the rise of humans, but there is a possible future where they flourish
Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans. But we can turn things around by reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture.Emerging COVID-19 success story: Germany's push to maintain progress
Germany is one country which has responded well to the Coronavirus pandemic. How did they do so? In-country experts provide key insights.What are the carbon opportunity costs of our food?
What are the carbon opportunity costs of our diet? How much carbon could we store by regrowing forests and wild habitats on existing farmland?How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food?
Estimates of food emissions can range from one-quarter to one-third. Where do these differences come from?How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?
I study the data on today's global inequality to calculate the minimum aggregate growth that is required to reduce global poverty substantially.Emerging COVID-19 success story: Vietnam's commitment to containment
Vietnam is one country which has responded well to the Coronavirus pandemic. How did they do so? In-country experts provide key insights.Emerging COVID-19 success story: South Korea learned the lessons of MERS
South Korea is one country which has responded well to the Coronavirus pandemic. How did they do so? In-country experts provide key insights.Global poverty in an unequal world: Who is considered poor in a rich country? And what does this mean for our understanding of global poverty?
What would global poverty look like if we rely on the notions of poverty in countries like Denmark, the US, or Germany? And why does this matter?If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
We could reduce the amount of land used for grazing and croplands used to grow animal feed.Do rich countries import deforestation from overseas?
Rich countries import foods produced on deforested land in the tropics. How much deforestation do they import?Cutting down forests: what are the drivers of deforestation?
Three-quarters of deforestation is driven by agriculture. Most comes from the production of beef, palm oil, soy and logging industries.The economies that are home to the poorest billions of people need to grow if we want global poverty to decline substantially
The majority of the world today is poor: 85% of the world live on less than $30 per day. We need economic growth to alleviate global poverty.Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Can we bring it to an end?
There was a marked acceleration in deforestation in the 20th century. But, global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Since then, it has slowed.The world has lost one-third of its forest, but an end of deforestation is possible
Over the last 10,000 years the world has lost one-third of its forests. An area twice the size of the United States. Half occurred in the last century.State-by-state data on COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States
To be able to track the vaccination campaign in the United States, we are making state-by-state data available in the following charts. We are updating the data daily.Do we only have 60 harvests left?
Claims that the world has only 100, 60, or even 30 years of harvests left often hit the headlines. These claims are overblown, but soil erosion is a problem and we can do something about it.