Brahmaputra river basin is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world subject to combined effects of glacier melt, extreme monsoon rainfall and sea level rise. Water is emerging as a new possible irritant between China and India. For India, Water of Brahmaputra constitutes a major lifeline...

In a context in which environmental protection have become in an important issue, the paper analyses which would be the optimal division of environmental policymaking functions among the different government levels. From the point of view of the fiscal federalism theory, we will design the most...

Economic globalization affects the environment and sustainable development in several ways and through various channels. The purpose of this paper is to review the key links between globalization and the environment. The paper intends to consider the major issues in multilateral economic...

There is a tendency among policy-makers and industry lobbyists toward "specific", "relative" or "output-based" quotas, i.e., freely distributed to firms proportionally to their output. With a stochastic analytical model, we demonstrate that relative quotas are dominated either by absolute quotas...

Empirical evidence evaluating the efficiency of economic instruments is still rare, despite significant theoretical advances over the last decades. The objective of this paper is to evaluate one form of environmental taxation, the French tax on air pollution from 1990-99. While starting out in...

The recent events that followed the US decision not to comply with the Kyoto Protocol seem to drastically undermine the effectiveness of the Protocol in controlling GHG emissions. Therefore, it is important to explore whether there are economic factors and policy strategies that might help the...

This paper analyses whether different emissions trading regimes provide different incentives to participate in a cooperative climate agreement. Different incentive structures are discussed for those countries, namely the US, Russia and China, that are most important in the climate negotiation...

This paper reviews the most important theoretical foundations of the spatial competitiveness conception, dealing with three levels of competitiveness: the country, the region and the tourism destination. Consequently, it draws attention to the main aspects that such concepts of competitiveness...

The European Commission (2001a) has recently presented a directive proposal to the Parliament and the Council in order to implement a tradable permits scheme. However, as stressed by the positive political economy, due to the influence of various interest groups, very few environmental policies...

This essay reviews the implementation experience with three main applications of tradable permit systems: air pollution control, water supply and fisheries management. Opening with a brief summary of the theory behind these programs and both the economic and environmental consequences...