When formal regulation is weak or absent, communities often use other channels to induce pollution abatement by local factories in a process of "informal regulation." The resulting "pollution equilibrium" reflects the relative bargaining power of the community and the plant. This note uses Indonesian data from 1989-90 on plant-level organic water pollution to test the informal regulation hypothesis.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains background and reference material for the text, including the text itself, as well as a slightly modified version of the World Bank's New ideas for pollution regulation (NIPR) web site, current as of 9/29/99. CD-ROM also includes Netscape, Adobe Acrobat, and Real Media audio/video player.

Protecting the environment is often not the primary objective of businesses. As the world has become more environmentally aware, the necessity of environmental regulations becomes apparent. Voluntary Environmental Programs: A Policy Perspective examines different approaches to environmental protection in business. Typically, environmental improvements on the part of industry result from government regulations that command certain action from industry and then control how well it performs. An alternative approach is voluntary environmental agreements, where firms voluntarily commit to make certain environmental improvements individually, as part of an industry association, or under the guidance of a government entity. For example, many new initiatives targeting climate change originate from companies that voluntarily commit to reduce their carbon output or footprint.

This publication describes and analyses the negative side effects of Japan's rapid technological and industrial development since the Meiji period. It examines the socio-economic and technological causes of ecological damage through case studies of several examples of industrial pollution in the process of Japan's modernization, including the Ashio copper mine case, the Morinaga milk arsenic poisoning incident, Minamata Disease and the Miike coal mine explosion.

Nowhere has the divide between advocates and critics of globalization been more striking than in debates over free trade and the environment. And yet the literature on the subject is high on rhetoric and low on results. This book is the first to systematically investigate the subject using both economic theory and empirical analysis. Brian Copeland and Scott Taylor establish a powerful theoretical framework for examining the impact of international trade on local pollution levels, and use it to offer a uniquely integrated treatment of the links between economic growth, liberalized trade, and the environment. The results will surprise many. The authors set out the two leading theories linking international trade to environmental outcomes, develop the empirical implications, and examine their validity using data on measured sulfur dioxide concentrations from over 100 cities worldwide during the period from 1971 to 1986. The empirical results are provocative. For an average country in the sample, free trade is good for the environment. There is little evidence that developing countries will specialize in pollution-intensive products with further trade. In fact, the results suggest just the opposite: free trade will shift pollution-intensive goods production from poor countries with lax regulation to rich countries with tight regulation, thereby lowering world pollution. The results also suggest that pollution declines amid economic growth fueled by economy-wide technological progress but rises when growth is fueled by capital accumulation alone. Lucidly argued and authoritatively written, this book will provide students and researchers of international trade and environmental economics a more reliable way of thinking about this contentious issue, and the methodological tools with which to do so.

Small firms - including 'microenterprises' and 'small and medium enterprises' (SMEs) - play a vital economic role in developing countries. They typically provide half of all jobs. In addition, they foster entrepreneurship and help key sectors adapt to changing market conditions. In light of these benefits, programs promoting small firms have become a cornerstone of economic development policy. Increasingly, however, scholars and policymakers are also exploring the link between small firms and the environment. The first compendium of research and policy analysis on this topic, this book is organized around three questions: How important is small firm pollution? Will forcing small firms to comply with environmental regulations exacerbate unemployment and poverty? And what policy options are available to control small firm pollution? Eleven case studies from China, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Malaysia, and Mexico address these questions. They compare the environmental damages caused by small firms and large ones. They explore the positive and negative economic consequences of pollution control strategies focusing on small firms, the administrative challenges of regulating thousands of firms which are often unregistered and unknown to the government, and they describe innovative approaches for persuading small firms to implement effective pollution controls. The case studies cover a variety of industrial sectors including ceramics, leather tanning, textiles, and agro-industry, and evaluate a wide range of environmental management strategies that include encouraging collective action among small firms, creating economic incentives for pollution control, and helping small firms adopt clean technologies and environmental management systems. Many of the chapters are groundbreaking, addressing topics new to the literature?for example, the role of international trade in greening small firms, and funding small firm pollution control projects by linking them to efforts to stem global warming. Highly readable, Small Firms and the Environment in Developing Countries is a valuable text for courses in development policy and economics that have an environmental component or focus. It will also prove of interest to development workers, policymakers in developing countries, and students and scholars of environmental policy and law.