One cannot expect developing countries to have the same environmental standards as developed ones. Standards can be at their efficiency levels and yet be lower than in developed countries due to differences in emissions, in the pollution absorptive capacity and in the intensity of environmental...

Economic theorists of international environmental cooperation and regime theorists who focus on the environment ask the same two basic research questions: why does international environmental cooperation emerge in some cases, but not in others, and why is cooperation 'wide' and 'deep' in some...

This articles examines what role natural factors play in explaining cross-country differences in carbon dioxide emissions. Natural factors mean here differences in the climatic conditions, the transportation requirements as well as in the availability of renewable and fossil fuel resources....

This article tests the hypothesis that democracies exhibit stronger environmental commitment than non-democracies using multivariate econometric techniques. A number of proxy variables are used in lieu of environmental commitment, a non-observable variable. Strong evidence is found that...

Objectives. We examined the effects of market income inequality (income inequality before taxes and transfers) and income redistribution via taxes and transfers on inequality in longevity. Methods. We used life tables to compute Gini coefficients of longevity inequality for all individuals and...

This article puts forward a number of arguments why trade openness might promote multilateral environmental cooperation. Most of these arguments are grounded in the substantive self-interest of the trading country. It tests the proposition using a range of proxy variables for general trade...

We analyze the spread of policies dealing with international trafficking in human beings. Arguing that countries are unlikely to make independent choices, we identify pressure, externalities and learning or emulation as plausible diffusion mechanisms for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking...

This paper explores the question whether entering into double tax treaties leads to more foreign investment. The topic has been the subject of a number of studies that have generated inconsistent results. The paper reviews previous studies and notes the limitations that may have affected their...

Donors frequently claim that a country's record on human rights plays a role in the decision whether it receives aid and if so, how much. This study of total bilateral and multilateral aid flows finds that human rights play at best a rather limited role in the allocation of aid. Aspects of human...

This article provides a statistical analysis of the determinants of Arab aid allocation using Heckman's two-step estimator. It is found that poorer, Arab, Islamic and Sub-Saharan African countries are more likely to receive some positive amount of Arab aid (gate-keeping stage). The same is true...