Since the onset of economic reforms in 1978, China has been remarkably successful in reducing the carbon dioxide intensities of gross domestic product and industrial production. Most analysts correctly attribute the rapid decline in the carbon dioxide intensity of industrial production to rising...

In 1986 and 1987 the lower oil prices called into question many of the fundamental assumptions that were the stock in trade of energy experts during the previous ten years. This document is a collection of papers representing responses to concerns prepared by current and former World Bank staff....

Ukraine encountered many economic problems in its first years of independence. Most serious among external shocks were the collapse of trade with the former Soviet Union and the sharp price increases for energy imports. External shocks resulted in an income loss in the current accounts...

The macroeconomic impact of commodity windfalls has provided fertile ground for research since the 1970s. Particularly affected are developing countries that rely heavily on commodity exports. in the case of oil windfalls, cross-country experience is vast: Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nigeria,...

Although private forest use in Brazil has been regulated at least since the Forest Code of 1965, cumulative deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached 653,000 km2 by 2003 (INPE 2004). Much of this deforestation is illegal. In 1999, the State Foundation of the Environment (FEMA) in Mato Grosso...

Collectively or individually, countries are likely to implement policies designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Experience from tradable quota schemes suggests that emissions trading could significantly reduce the costs of emission limits. The Kyoto Protocol provides the framework for a...

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....

The authors explore the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality by analyzing patterns of environmental transformation for countries at different income levels. They look at how eight indicators of environmental quality evolve in response to economic growth and policies...

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...

This paper analyzes the determinants of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. From a model of optimal use, it derives and then estimates a deforestation equation on county-level data for the period 1978 to 1988. The data include a deforestation measure from satellite images, which is a great...