Economic policies that boost profits from agroforesty, thereby creating financial incentives for land managers to favor these systems over less environmentally friendly land uses, could, in theory, have ancillary environmental benefits. This paper analyzes primary and secondary data to determine...

Managed forest ecosystems—agroforestry systems in which crops such as coffee and bananas are planted side-by-side with woody perennials—are being touted as a means of safeguarding forests along with the ecological services they provide. Yet we know little about the determinants of land cover...

More than three-quarters of Mexico’s coffee is grown on small plots shaded by the existing forest. Because they preserve forest cover, shade coffee farms provide vital ecological services including harboring biodiversity and preventing soil erosion. Unfortunately, tree cover in Mexico’s...

Managed forest ecosystems—agroforestry systems in which crops such as coffee and bananas are planted side-by-side with woody perennials—are being touted as a means of safeguarding forests along with the ecological services they provide. Yet we know little about the determinants of land cover...

Economic policies that boost the return to mixed agroforesty, thereby creating financial incentives for land managers to favor these systems over less environmentally friendly land uses, could, in theory, have ancillary environmental benefits. This paper analyses primary and secondary data to...

Certification is intended to improve management of and environmental outcomes in developing country forests. Yet we know little about whether and how it actually generates such benefits. To address that question, we analyze 1,162 corrective action requests (CARs) issued after third-party...

In many cities in developing countries, clusters of small and medium enterprises create severe pollution problems. Because conventional regulatory approaches are typically ineffective in such situations, policy responses have increasingly focused on promoting voluntary clean technological...

Private sector initiatives certifying that producers of goods and services adhere to defined environmental process standards are increasingly popular worldwide. According to proponents, they can circumvent chronic barriers to effective public sector environmental regulation in developing...

Advocates claim that voluntary programs can help shore up poorly performing command-and-control environmental regulation in developing countries. Although literature on this issue is quite thin, research on voluntary environmental programs in industrialized countries suggests that they are often...

Because conventional command-and-control environmental regulation often performs poorly in developing countries, policymakers are increasingly experimenting with alternatives, including voluntary regulatory programs. Research in industrialized countries suggests that such programs are sometimes...