How has environment mattered for the World Bank? The aggregate figures suggest that it has mattered a great deal, since the Bank's total environmental lending has exceeded $US 9 billion over the past six years. In this paper the authors use newly available data to address a more precise version...

The authors call for a revised model for the regulation of industrial pollution. They think the traditional emphasis on appropriate instruments, while ultimately correct, is premature, because agencies in most developing countries have insufficient information and burdensome transaction costs to...

The authors test a model of supply-demand relations in an implicit market for environmental services when formal regulation is absent. They use plant-level data from Indonesia for 1989-90, before the advent of nationwide environmental regulation. Treating pollution as a derived demand for...

Over two decades, the World Bank has undertaken many structural adjustment operations withgovernments of developing countries. During negotiations for structural adjustment loans (SALs), partner governments agree to specific policy reforms, whose implementation becomes a condition for...

Several previous studies have asked whether environmental controls imposed in the industrial economies are diverting investments in pollution-intensive activities off-shore. Broadly, these studies conclude that direct investment does not appear to be stimulated by such regulations, partly...

The authors develop comparative indices of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development. In cross-country regressions, they find a very strong, continuous association...

As the wild tiger population in tropical Asia dropped from about 100,000 to 3,500 in the last century, the need to conserve tiger habitats poses a challenge for the Global Tiger Recovery Program. This paper develops and uses a high-resolution monthly forest clearing database for 74 tiger habitat...

The potentially-adverse impact of salinity on paved roads is well-established in the engineering literature. The problem seems destined to grow, as climate-related changes in sea level and riverine flows drive future increases in groundwater salinity. However, data scarcity has prevented...

The authors start from the premise that governments act as agents of the public in regulating pollution, using the instruments at their disposal. But when formal regulatory mechanisms are absent or ineffective, communities will seek other means of translating their preferences into reality....

Environmental degradation can inflict serious damage on poor people because their livelihoods often depend on natural resource use and their living conditions may offer little protection from air, water, and soil pollution. At the same time, poverty-constrained options may induce the poor to...