Except for two relatively minor statutes, U.S. environmental laws do not permit the balancing of costs and benefits in setting environmental standards. The Clean Air Act, for example, prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from considering costs in setting ambient air quality...

Between World War II and the early 1970s, Tanzania developed one of the world's largest cashew nut industries. In 1973-74, marketed production reached 145,000 tons (about 30 percent of world production), with cashews providing an important source of income to some 250,000 farmers and being the...

Cotton exports account for a significant share of commodity exports for some developing countries, especially in West Africa and Central Asia. In these countries, dependency on cotton for export revenues has increased in the past 20 years. These countries therefore have a high exposure to cotton...

The authors analyze the impact of three classes of external shocks in open economies, using a rational expectations framework that nests three prototype economies: a neoclassical full-employment benchmark, with intertemporally optimizing consumers and firms an instant clearing of asset, goods,...

Larsen and Shah present evidence on the level of fossil fuel subsidies and their implications for carbon dioxide emissions. They conclude that substantial fossil fuel subsidies prevail in a handful of large, carbon-emitting countries. Removing such subsidies could substantially reduce national...

The author contrasts command-and-control regulation (tight control of water purification, for example) with more flexible forms, including incentive regulation (such as price cap regulation), potential regulation (providing for closer scrutiny if enough customers complain), and reactive rather...

Commodity prices have historically been among the most volatile of international prices. Measured volatility (the standard deviation of price changes) has not been below 15 percent and at times has been more than 50 percent. Often the volatility of commodity prices has exceeded that of exchange...

Sound public policy addresses externalities directly, when possible. Air pollution is best alleviated by policy instruments that internalize the social cost of pollution, making it attractive to reduce emissions. One such instrument might be a tax levied on individual emissions, if they are...

Viet Nam is trying to preserve its sociopolitical system while moving gradually toward a different economic system, recognizing that law is a valuable instrument for effecting orderly change. It has begun to enact the laws and decrees needed in such areas as company law, contract law, banking...

North (1984) argues that it is not the cost of transport but the cost of transactions that prevents economies from realizing well-being - and that institutions matter because they affect the costs of transactions. The authors analyze the role of the deliberation council - an institution common...