Public Expenditure Policy and the Environment: A Review and Synthesis

Commonly cited environmental instruments in the legal, regulatory, and fiscal domains are intended primarily to address market failures to ensure that environmental degradation and resource use is contained to appropriate levels. However, in many instances, environmental degradation is rooted not in market failure, but rather in policy failure. This paper identifies areas of public expenditure policy that interact with the environment. It argues that a reform of certain types of subsidies, increased operations and maintenance expenditures, and a thorough environmental assessment of capital projects will tend to benefit the environment, thereby moving an economy towards `sustainable` development.

[1]  Thomas C. Schelling,et al.  Some economics of global warming , 1992 .

[2]  M. Kelly.  Issues and Developments in International Trade Policy , 1992 .

[3]  Robert W. Hahn,et al.  Economic Prescriptions for Environmental Problems: How the Patient Followed the Doctor's Orders , 1989 .

[4]  R. Repetto.  Skimming the water: rent-seeking and the performance of public irrigation systems , 1986 .

[5]  S. Gupta,et al.  The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community: Principles and Consequences , 1988 .

[6]  M. Pitt,et al.  Equity, externalities and energy subsidies The case of kerosine in Indonesia☆ , 1985 .

[7]  G. Brundtland,et al.  Our common future , 1987 .

[8]  John C. V. Pezzey,et al.  Economic analysis of sustainable growth and sustainable development , 1989 .

[9]  R. Repetto,et al.  Wasting Assets: Natural Resources in the National Income Accounts , 1989 .

[10]  G. Ohlin.  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , 1968, International Organization.

[11]  W. Baumol,et al.  The Use of Standards and Prices for Protection of the Environment , 1971 .

[12]  W. Baumol.  Environmental protection, international spillovers and trade , 1971 .

[13]  R. Repetto.  Paying the price : pesticide subsidies in developing countries , 1985 .

[14]  Wallace E. Oates,et al.  The theory of environmental policy , 1976 .

[15]  Kenneth Button,et al.  Environmental Externalities and Transport Policy , 1990 .

[16]  G. A. Hughes.  A New Method for Estimating the Effects of Fuel Taxes: An Application to Thailand , 1986 .

[17]  Christopher Flavin.  SLOWING GLOBAL WARMING: A WORLDWIDE STRATEGY , 1989 .

[18]  D. Pearce,et al.  Assessment: Economic Policy towards the Environment , 1990 .

[19]  Mark Kosmo,et al.  Money to Burn?: The High Costs of Energy Subsidies , 1987 .

[20]  R. Repetto.  The forest for the trees? : government policies and the misuse of forest resources , 1988 .

[21]  Herman E. Daly,et al.  The economic growth debate: What some economists have learned but many have not , 1987 .

[22]  Clement A. Tisdell,et al.  Sustainable Development - Differing Perspectives of Ecologists and Economists, and Relevance to Ldcs , 1988 .

[23]  E. Arrhenius,et al.  The greenhouse effect : implications for economic development , 1990 .