Godoy and coauthors explore the methodologies and findings of journal articles in the social sciences (1985 ? 2003), investigating the effect of market economies on the subsistence, health, nutritional status, social capital, and traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples and their use of renewable natural resources. The review is based on quantitative studies in developing nations.

The paper discusses the difficulties of quantitatively linking market economies with the wellbeing of indigenous people and suggests that the following issues are contributing to the lack of consistent findings:

1. A lack of agreement on how to measure variables among researchers that makes it difficult to draw comparisons and generalizations
2. A lack of a convincing strategy to identify causality
3. Weak collaboration among researchers of different disciplines, which produces a partial view
4. Absence of long panels, and reliance on cross sectional data or short panels which hinders an understanding of development over time

Interesting points are raised regarding the assessment of health using objective and perceived measures, means of measuring TEK and its intracultural distribution, cross sectional and panel data and endogeneity biases.
Prepared by: Hattie Wells [HW], Regional Coordinator for southern Africa, The Global Diversity Foundation, July 2006