The complaints process in China provides useful information and helps encourage community participation in environmental policy. But it also directs a big share of inspection resources to areas where people tend to complain. After analyzing provincial data for 1987-93, the authors find the...

Most discussions of the digital divide treat it as a"North-South"issue, but the conventional dichotomy doesn't applyto cell phones in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although almost all Sub-Saharan countries are poor by international standards, they exhibit great disparities in coverage by cell telephone...

In this paper, the authors have assessed the incidence and determinants of pesticide poisoning among rice farmers in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Blood cholinesterase tests suggest that the incidence of poisoning from exposure to organophosphates and carbamates is quite high in Vietnam. Using the...

How has environment mattered for the World Bank? The aggregate figures suggest that it has mattered a great deal, since the Bank's total environmental lending has exceeded $US 9 billion over the past six years. In this paper the authors use newly available data to address a more precise version...

Sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change is a serious global threat. The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming could well promote SLR of 1m-3m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and West...

Using factory-level data provided by China's National Environmental Protection Agency and the Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau, the authors of this report estimate the costs of water pollution abatement for Chinese industry. Using their econometric results, they analyze the...

The authors develop comparative indices of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development. In cross-country regressions, they find a very strong, continuous association...

As the wild tiger population in tropical Asia dropped from about 100,000 to 3,500 in the last century, the need to conserve tiger habitats poses a challenge for the Global Tiger Recovery Program. This paper develops and uses a high-resolution monthly forest clearing database for 74 tiger habitat...

Using new survey evidence, the authors analyze the effects of regulation, plant-level management policies, and plant and firm characteristics on environmental performance in Mexican factories. They focus especially on management policies: the degree of effort to improve environmental performance...

Concerns about the sustainability of conventional agriculture have prompted widespread introduction of integrated pest management (IPM), an ecologically-based approach to control of harmful insects and weeds. IPM is intended to reduce ecological and health damage from chemical pesticides by...