Assessing the Economic Impacts of Environmental Policies Evidence from a Decade of OECD Research


Book Description

Over the past decades, governments have gradually adopted more rigorous environmental policies to tackle challenges associated with pressing environmental issues, such as climate change. The ambition of these policies is, however, often tempered by their perceived negative effects on the economy.




Revitalizing Industrial Growth in Pakistan


Book Description

Pakistan’s development efforts are guided by its 2011 Framework for Economic Growth, which identifies actions needed to create a prosperous, industrialized Pakistan through rapid and sustainable development. Industrialization has the potential to drive Pakistan’s economic growth and contribute significantly to meeting both economic and human development goals in Pakistan. Expansions of industrialization activities, whether in highly developed or developing countries, can be stimuli for intense debate about such projects’ benefits and costs to the region in which they are to be located, to the national economy—and to human health and the environment. Pakistan’s 2011 Framework for Economic Growth recognizes that, to accelerate industrialization, Pakistan must reduce the cost of doing business and create an incentive structure designed to achieve a competitive, dynamic, and export-driven industrial sector capable of providing employment to the growing labor force. Competing in global markets requires a socially and environmentally sustainable industrialization strategy. The four main inputs for sustainable industrial growth in Pakistan discussed in this book are 1) Macroeconomic stability and sectoral policies to support industrial competitiveness by allowing long-term planning, including investments in infrastructure and cleaner production. 2) Upgraded trade facilitation and infrastructure (particularly transport and energy) to address some of industrialization’s spatial aspects. Improved transport infrastructure will lower production’s environmental costs. 3) Greening of Pakistan’s industrial sector to enhance international competitiveness—“greening” will make Pakistan a more attractive export partner for nations and firms committed to green production. 4) Strong institutions—for example, environmental management agencies to control pollution, and cleaner production centers to increase domestic awareness of international environmental standards—to implement industrialization initiatives effectively, including those for small and medium-sized enterprises. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of issues relating to the debate about Pakistan’s green industrial growth and lays out priorities and strategies for “greening” Pakistan’s industrial growth.




Fiscal Policies for Development and Climate Action


Book Description

This report provides actionable advice on how to design and implement fiscal policies for both development and climate action. Building on more than two decades of research in development and environmental economics, it argues that well-designed environmental tax reforms are especially valuable in developing countries, where they can reduce emissions, increase domestic revenues, and generate positive welfare effects such as cleaner water, safer roads, and improvements in human health. Moreover, these reforms need not harm competitiveness. New empirical evidence from Indonesia and Mexico suggests that under certain conditions, raising fuel prices can actually increase firm productivity. Finally, the report discusses the role of fiscal policy in strengthening resilience to climate change. It provides evidence that preventive public investments and measures to build fiscal buffers can help safeguard stability and growth in the face of rising climate risks. In this way, environmental tax reforms and climate risk-management strategies can lay the much-needed fiscal foundation for development and climate action.




Using Economic Policy to Improve Environmental Protection in Pakistan


Book Description

Pakistan has introduced market-oriented economic reform - its vigorous implementation and extension will help both economic growth and the environment. Faruqee studies Pakistan's major environmental problems, both green and brown, and assesses the extent to which economic policies affect incentives to protect the environment. Experience in other countries shows that nondistortionary economic policies that promote economic growth by improving the allocation of resources also create appropriate incentives for protecting the environment. Sound economic policies alone are not enough, of course. Environmental policies designed to correct market failures are also necessary. Pakistan, like many countries, has relied mostly on command-and-control environmental policies, which have often failed because its regulatory institutions lack the resources to monitor compliance. Pakistan would be better off using incentive- or market-based policies, which use prices to encourage pollution abatement and the appropriate use of resources. Failures in economic policy contribute significantly to Pakistan's brown environmental problems, which include industrial and domestic wastewater pollution, as well as air pollution (especially from motor vehicle emissions). Pollution problems exist both in urban and industrial areas, as well as in marine and coastal zone waters. Failures in economic policy also contribute to green environmental problems, affecting behavior in forests, rangelands, and both rainfed and irrigated agriculture. Subsidies for irrigation water, for example, encourage farmers to overuse water, exacerbating the problems of waterlogging and salinity that plague irrigated agriculture. Lack of property rights in communal forests and the failure to give local communities incentives to participate in forest-management decisions have contributed to the problems of deforestation and the degradation of Pakistan's rangeland. This paper - a product of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Division, Country Department I, South Asia - was presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, December 13-15, 1996, Islamabad.




Global Trends 2040


Book Description

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.




Environmental Regulation


Book Description

Featuring an original introduction by the editors, this important collection of essays explores the main issues surrounding the regulation of the environment. The expert contributors illustrate that regulating the environment in the UK is conceptually complex, involves a diverse range of institutions, techniques and methodologies and crosses geographical and national boundaries. In the USA it is more formalised, juridical, adversarial and formally dependent upon legal rules. The articles highlight the fact that despite differences in the UK and the USA's regulatory styles, environmental regulation today has much in common with both traditions.




Agriculture and the rural economy in Pakistan: Issues, outlooks, and policy priorities: Synopsis


Book Description

While policy makers, media, and the international community focus their attention on Pakistan’s ongoing security challenges, the potential of the rural economy, and particularly the agricultural sector, to improve Pakistanis’ well-being is being neglected. Agriculture is crucial to Pakistan’s economy. Almost half of the country’s labor force works in the agricultural sector, which produces food and inputs for industry (such as cotton for textiles) and accounts for over a third of Pakistan’s total export earnings. Equally important are nonfarm economic activities in rural areas, such as retail sales in small village shops, transportation services, and education and health services in local schools and clinics. Rural nonfarm activities account for between 40 and 57 percent of total rural household income. Their large share of income means that the agricultural sector and the rural nonfarm economy have vital roles to play in promoting growth and reducing poverty in Pakistan.




Energy and Environmental Challenges to Security


Book Description

On 21 November 2007 the grand and elegant Delegates Hall of the Hungarian Parliament was the scene of the opening of a conference to discuss some of the most pressing issues of the day, those related to our unending thirst for energy, its environmental consequences, and the challenges that these bear on security. Over the next 3 days scientists, parliamentarians and their guests confronted, challenged, teased and cajoled each other in a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) entitled “Energy and Environmental Challenges to Security,” affirming that knowledge and public service hold the keys to solving our greatest challenges. The magnitude of the security challenge was confirmed while this volume was being prepared. In mid-2008, the International Energy Agency issued a report concluding that US$45 trillion would be needed over the next half century to prevent energy shortages and greenhouse gas emissions from undermining global economic growth. But lest such large numbers cause us all to shrug, this volume brings attention to some of the more manageable aspects of the environment and energy security challenge – from addressing conflict resources such as illegal timber that contribute to corruption and regional instability, to means and mechanisms to enable the diversification of energy supplies, to environmental risk reduction strategies for particular installations. The participants in the Hungarian Parliament building were atypical for a NATO Advanced Research Workshop.




Greening Growth in Pakistan Through Transport Sector Reforms


Book Description

Greening Growth in Pakistan through Transport Sector Reforms: A Strategic Environmental, Poverty, and Social Assessment identifies reforms that can help Pakistan manage its environmental priorities given transport's impacts on air quality, noise pollution, road safety, hazardous-materials transport, climate change, and urban sprawl. The policy options are contextualized in light of the government of Pakistan's 2011 Framework for Economic Growth and its strategic objectives. This analytical work examines the poverty, social, and environmental aspects associated with reforms that would increase the freight transport sector's productivity to meet the Framework's goals. It focuses on the following areas: - Analyzing the policy and institutional adjustments required to address the environmental, social, and poverty aspects of increased transportation efficiency in Pakistan - Identifying policy options for the government of Pakistan to better serve the population, to enhance social cohesion, and to foster equitable benefit sharing with low-income or other vulnerable groups - Developing a broad participatory process to give a voice to stakeholders who could be affected by enhancements of freight transport productivity - Making robust recommendations to strengthen governance and the institutional capacity of agencies to manage the environmental, social, and poverty consequences of freight transportation infrastructure The book also presents information on the economic and institutional analyses undergirding this report and details its methodology. Greening Growth in Pakistan through Transport Sector Reforms is intended for policy makers, civil society, the private sector, and academics who wish to participate in dialogues on Pakistan's trade and transport sectors' priorities. It is hoped that this report will stimulate debate that steers these sectors and their participants in the direction of greening economic growth.