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....

Using new international data, the authors test for an inverse U-shaped, or"Kuznets,"relationship between industrial water pollution and economic development. They measure the effect of income growth on three proximate determinants of pollution: the share of manufacturing in total output, the...

The World Bank's technical assistance work with new environmental protection institutions stresses cost-effective regulation, with market-based pollution control instruments implemented wherever feasible. But few environmental protection institutions can do the benefit-cost analysis needed...