The current debate on trade liberalization is accompanied by an increased concern about environmental and food safety issues leading to frictions of different country groups under the World Trade Organization (WTO). This discussion paper aims at shedding more light on some of the issues in the...

Why do some countries establish their own national eco-labeling programs and some do not? In this paper, we provide both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggesting that the answer to this question can shed new light on three questions that have taken center-stage in the trade and...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown far more rapidly than trade during the last two decades. As with the other prominent features of globalisation, FDI is controversial. The impact of FDI on labour markets has been of growing concern, particularly, for source countries. The deterioration...

In this paper, we assess the effect of globalization on the distribution of income within countries, focussing on the influence of foreign direct investment. We analyze data for 72 countries, 1970-90. We incorporate in our tests the Kuznets (1955) curve, measures of the character of political...

This paper addresses the issue of environmental and ecological impacts of nutrient flows within and between countries by reviewing and presenting data on nutrient balances and global nutrient movements. The results for nutrient depletion in agricultural soils during 1996-1999 show that in most...

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze economic and policy factors affecting pollution by Township and Village Industrial Enterprises (TVIEs) in China and to discuss problems and directions in environmental policies for them. With the rapid growth of TVIEs since the early 1980s,...

Cooperation between the states of the Caucasus and Central Asia is paramount in solving the region's environmental problems. Given the acute socio-economic difficulties they face, their slow progress is understandable. Serious environmental and socio-economic consequences cumulate as the neglect...