Message-ID: <85256691.006F1F60.132@WBLN0014.worldbank.org> Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 16:14:50 -0400 From: mailto:Dshaman@WORLDBANK.ORG Subject: NIPR newsletter, September 1998 To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
1 - "Knowledge for Development", 1998/99 World Development Report now available 2 - "Accounting for Toxicity Risks in Pollution Control: Does it Matter?" research paper 3 - "Taxing Bads by Taxing Goods: Pollution Control with Presumptive Charges" book 4 - Upcoming Bank conference on public-private sector collaboration for cost-effective pollution management 5 - New Links for OnTheNet page 6 - A new look for NIPR and the World Bank websitesDear Friends:
We are pleased to continue to be able to provide you with research from the New Ideas in Pollution Regulation (http://www.worldbank.org/NIPR) team, which we hope you will find helpful to your own research initiatives on pollution regulation and control issues.
1 - "Knowledge for Development", 1998/99 World Development Report now available
The Knowledge for Development Report examines the role of knowledge in advancing economic and social well being. Because knowledge matters, understanding how people and societies acquire and use knowledge, and why they sometimes fail to do so, is essential to improving people's lives, especially the lives of the poorest among us. This year's report suggests that developing countries should institute policies that will enable them to narrow the knowledge gaps that separate poor countries from rich countries. The report also suggests developing country governments, multilateral institutions, non-governmental organizations and the private sector should work together to strengthen the institutions needed to address information problems. NIPR has linked to the general report and the chapter on environment.
2 - "Accounting for Toxicity Risks in Pollution Control: Does it Matter?" research paper
In their paper, "Accounting for Toxicity Risks in Pollution Control: Does it Matter?", authors Susmita Dasgupta, Benoit Laplante and Craig Meisner explore whether ranking toxic pollution emissions without accounting for the toxicity risks of different pollutants may lead to flawed priorities and misallocation of resources by environmental regulators. In an attempt to account for the relative differences in chemical toxicty, a number of organizations have developed thresholds or exposure limits to account for toxicity risk. The authors reviewed risk methodologies currently available, and then applied them to almost 3,500 industrialized municipals in Brazil. These findings suggest that it is of importance for environmental regulators to engage into weighting pollutants for their relative toxicity risk when prioritizing pollution control effort either at the industrial or regional level. The findings however suggest that at high levels of aggregation, the choice of a particular indicator should not be a matter of immense debate.
http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/work_paper/risk/index.htm
3 - "Taxing Bads by Taxing Goods: Pollution Control with Presumptive Charges" book
Bank researchers Gunnar Eskeland and Shantayanan Devarajan, in their book "Taxing Bads by Taxing Goods: Pollution Control with Presumptive Charges", explore whether presumptive charges can be important complementary measures in a cost-effective pollution control program. Presumptive charges are indirect taxes levied on polluting inputs and outputs, designed to reduce the scale in polluting activities. Since they tax activities associated with emissions rather than emissions themselves, they can typically be combined with other instruments that make the activity cleaner per unit of output, such emission standards. Their analysis concludes one can tax a bad - such as pollution - by taxing a good or product - such as fuel - when the monitoring of emissions is prohibitively expensive. To illustrate their argument, the researchers use taxation of fuel use, and other examples of effective indirect instruments.
http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/work_paper/taxbads/index.htm
4 - Upcoming Bank conference on public-private sector collaboration for cost-effective pollution management
Coming October 26th, the World Bank's Economic Development Institute will host a worldwide policy dialogue between the public and private sectors on "Collaborating for Cost-Effective Pollution Management" in Washington, D.C. Over the last decade, environmental regulators and policymakers have increasingly discovered that working with the industry representatives can be a more cost-effective alternative to pollution control than traditional monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. Industry has also learned that collaborative approaches with regulators can reduce their production costs, and both improved the quality of their product and their image to consumers. This dialogue will bring together government and private sector representatives to highlight successful approaches and lessons for managing pollution.
http://www.worldbank.org/edi/pubpriv/ni.htm
5 - New Links for OnTheNet page
We have added a number of new links to our OnTheNet page. Included in the new additions is the Economic Performance and Environmental Quality site which has economic data matched with environmental quality indicators and examples of how economic instruments are being used to improve the environment. The U.S. EPA's Office of Research and Development is involved in risk assessment and management to remediate environmental and human health problems. Their site has a section on grant and fellowship opportunities for research initiatives. The Air and Waste Management Association provides information and networking opportunities for environmental professionals in sixty-five countries. Also of note is the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute site which provides information on technologies, management practices, grants and publications to educate the public and encourage reduction of toxic chemical use and generation.
http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/onthenet.htm
6 - A new look for NIPR and the World Bank websites
In honor of the World Bank/IMF annual meetings, the Bank has remodeled and improved its website. To keep up with these changes, we have remodeled the NIPR site so it is consistent with the rest of the Bank's site. Other features on the Bank's site worth investigating include:
A new section on the Bank's response to the most vulnerable populations impacted by the Asian financial crisis http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/eacrisis/
Poverty Net, a new resource for people working on poverty-related issues http://www.worldbank.org/poverty
revised and expanded resources for international development data http://www.worldbank.org/data
revised and expanded resources for research http://www.worldbank.org/research
revised and expanded resources for prospects http://www.worldbank.org/prospects
and a vastly improved search engine http://www.worldbank.org/search.htm
We continue to receive suggestions and comments from our readers, and always they are appreciated. We hope you will continue to let us know interesting ideas, trends and other bits of information, and will provide us feedback on new papers, datasets and informational kiosks which we present. If you wish to no longer receive our monthly mailings, please let us know by writing David Shaman at mailto:dshaman@worldbank.org. Best wishes.