This paper studies the effects of various forms of government decentralization on institutional quality across countries. Using corruption and the shadow economy to proxy for institutional quality, as well as three forms of government decentralization (i.e., virtual, physical, and fiscal), the...

Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental fiscal relations reform have become nearly ubiquitous in developing countries. Performance, however, has often been disappointing in terms of both policy formulation and outcomes. The dynamics underlying these results have been poorly researched....

Even though access to sanitation facilities has improved in the urban areas of many Asian developing countries, the pollution of public water bodies remains a serious problem. One of the causes of water pollution is improper decentralized wastewater management. This study explains the evolution...

Evidence shows that there are numerous socioeconomic and environmental benefits from improved sanitation; conversely, numerous studies have explored the lack of access to basic sanitation and its negative impact on gross domestic product (GDP). This paper establishes the positive impacts on GDP...

Right now, governments around the world are spending record amounts of money to kickstart their economies in response to the financial crisis. Fortunately, a great opportunity exists for this fiscal stimulus to be directed towards "green" economic growth, which can not only provide the new...

The developing economies of Asia are confronted by serious environmental problems that threaten to undermine future growth, food security, and regional stability. This study considers four major environmental challenges that policymakers across developing Asia will need to address towards 2030:...

An increasing services orientation is likely to be a key feature of the economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People's Republic of China, and India (collectively referred to as "ACI") over the medium-term. This paper aims to present a compendium of relevant data on...

Developing Asia is the driver of today's emissions intensive global economy. As the principle source of future emissions, the region is critical to the task of global climate change mitigation. Reflecting this global reality and a range of related domestic issues, the governments of the People's...

While bringing positive impacts and benefits, cross-border infrastructure projects face additional challenges relative to national projects. Moreover, such projects involve a variety of technical, regulatory, institutional, and legal factors, and their obstacles constrain the development of...

Environmental information disclosure strategies, which involve corporate attempts to increase the availability of information on pollution and emissions, can become a basis for a new wave of environmental protection policy that follows and has the potential to complement traditional command and...