This paper informs the national and
international policy discussions related to the adoption of
the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
Forest Degradation Programme. Effective program instruments
must carefully consider incentives, opportunity costs, and
community interactions. A choice experiment survey was
applied to rural Ethiopian communities to understand
respondents’ preferences toward the institutional structure

This paper investigates the
effectiveness of protected areas in slowing tropical forest
clearing in 64 countries in Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Latin
America for the period 2001-2012. The investigation compares
deforestation rates inside and within 10 kilometers outside
the boundary of protected areas. Annual time series of these
deforestation rates were constructed from recently published
high-resolution data on forest clearing. For 4,028 parks,

This paper analyzes the dynamic effects
of rate-of-return regulation on firms’ emissions compliance
behavior when the price of emissions permits is uncertain.
The paper shows that uncertainty regarding the price of
permits would motivate a regulated firm to adopt a more
self-sufficient strategy and would reduce the
cost-effectiveness of emission allowance trading. When
allowance transactions are treated as capital investments,

Information on ecosystem characteristics
as well as economic statistics is needed to more fully
inform decision makers on the impacts of climate change on
human well-being. Climate change risks involve potentially
large and irreversible as well as highly uncertain impacts
that need to be evaluated with information that complements
cost-benefit analysis. Information on the irreversibility of
impacts also is relevant for evaluating implications for

The Amazon rainforest, the world's
largest and most biodiverse, represents a global public good
of which 15 percent has already been lost. The worldwide
value of preserving the remaining forest is today unknown. A
"Delphi" exercise was conducted involving more
than 200 environmental valuation experts from 36 countries,
who were asked to predict the outcome of a survey to elicit
willingness to pay for Amazon forest preservation among

Economists have either avoided or
struggled with the concept of culture and its role in
economic development. Although a few theoretical works --
and even fewer empirical studies -- have appeared in the
past decades, this paper tries to build on a
multidisciplinary approach to review the evidence on whether
and how culture matters for development. First, the paper
reviews available definitions of culture and illustrates

It is a virtual certainty that sea-level
rise will continue throughout the century and beyond 2100
even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized in the near
future. Understanding the economic impacts of salinity
intrusion thus is essential for planning adaptation in
low-lying coastal areas around the world. This paper
presents a case study in Bangladesh on how climate change
leads to the spread of soil salinity and the impact on

India’s sustained and rapid economic
growth offers an opportunity to lift millions out of
poverty. But this may come at a steep cost to the nation’s
environment and natural resources. This insightful book
analyzes India’s growth from an economic perspective and
assesses whether India can grow in a “green” and sustainable
manner. Three key issues are addressed. The first is the

This report provides estimates of social
and financial costs of environmental damage in India from
three pollution damage categories: (i) urban air pollution,
including particulate matter and lead; (ii) inadequate water
supply, poor sanitation, and hygiene; (iii) indoor air
pollution; and four natural resource damage categories: (a)
agricultural damage from soil salinity, water logging, and
soil erosion; (b) rangeland degradation; (c) deforestation;

The focus of development actors working
in the area of disaster management has shifted substantially
from disaster recovery to disaster risk reduction over the
past decade, coinciding with the decade of the Hyogo
Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015. Amidst this strategic
shift, there is now the need to work towards ensuring that
investments made to reduce disaster risks are cost-effective
and that the benefits reach all members of the population

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 areas in ten countries to
investigate habitat threats for Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan
and Sumatran tigers. The econometric model links forest

"Ecosystem services" has
become a catch-phrase for the complex connections between
the natural environment and human well-being. This paper
considers the impact of changes in the supply of ecosystem
services, and programs to increase their supply, on
near-term growth of gross domestic product. It focuses on
the relationship between locally generated versus
transboundary services and growth in developing countries,