Environmental policies in developing countries

Abstract

The policy linkage between environment and development is traced to variations in the relevant tradeoffs between countries and over periods of time. Emphasis is placed on the evaluation of the benefits and costs of industrialization, the discounting of future benefit and cost flows back to the present, and complementarity between environmental and development objectives where pollution is the product of poverty. Abrupt change in developing countries' environmental policies can easily occur, and external assistance should be targeted where benefits and costs are most responsive without imposing conditions based on foreign value judgements. Refs.