Why are there areas with persistenly low levels of income or consumption? This could result from the concentration of households with a low capital endowment or from variations in households’ environment. Peru is a country with a very much fragmented topography and climate, that combines dry...

Fiscal constraints and policy changes to improve effectiveness of programs in reducing poverty has progressively led the international community to use tools for reaching the poor. Targeting antipoverty interventions is one of them. This paper aims at providing a general review of experiences of...

Agricultural expansion is the main deforestation driver, while forest degradation is due to non-sustainable poaching and harvesting of forest products. Policies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) thus focus on agricultural expansion and illegal harvesting. The...

In international emissions trading schemes such as the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, the sub- optimal negotiation of the cap with respect to total pollution minimization leads us to critically examine the proposition that generous allocation of grandfathered...

The article develops R.H.Coase's insight that the level of transaction costs in the market determines the amount of externalities, thus providing arguments against government intervention. Contrary to Coase, however, we argue that the level of transaction costs cannot be considered as given, and...

The Stern Review constitutes today the most complete and didactic synthesis of the economics of climate change. Despite appearances, it is not, however, a simple reference manual. Its most attractive feature is the author’s commitment to action in the face of climactic risk. The report’s...

We investigate the relative efficiency of an agreement based on a uniform standard without transfers and one based on differentiated standards with transfers when strictly identical countries deal with transboundary pollution. We especially ask what role fixed cost plays. Two approaches are...