Many experts believe that low-cost
mitigation opportunities in agriculture are abundant and
comparable in scale to those found in the energy sector.
They are mostly located in developing countries and have to
do with how land is used. By investing in projects under the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), countries can tap these
opportunities to meet their own Kyoto Protocol obligations.
The CDM has been successful in financing some types of

Today, 370 million people live in cities
in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with
high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050, these
numbers are likely to more than double. Mortality risk
therefore is highly concentrated in many of the world s
cities and economic risk even more so. This paper discusses
what sets hazard risk in urban areas apart, provides
estimates of valuation of hazard risk, and discusses

A pricing reform in Turkey increased the
residential electricity tariff by more than 50 percent in
2008. The reform, aimed at encouraging energy efficiency and
private investment, sparked considerable policy debate about
its potential impact on household welfare. This paper
estimates a short-run residential electricity demand
function for evaluating the distributional consequences of
the tariff reform. The model allows heterogeneity in

This paper proposes an alternative
approach to addressing the complex problems of climate
change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The author, who
won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, argues that
single policies adopted only at a global scale are unlikely
to generate sufficient trust among citizens and firms so
that collective action can take place in a comprehensive and
transparent manner that will effectively reduce global

Municipal solid waste management
continues to be a major challenge for local governments in
both urban and rural areas across the world, and one of the
key issues is their financial constraints. Recently an
economic analysis was conducted in Eryuan, a poor county
located in Yunnan Province of China, where willingness to
pay for an improved solid waste collection and treatment
service was estimated and compared with the project cost.

While polluted surface water is
encountered across most of China, few economic valuation
studies have been conducted on water quality changes.
Limited information about the economic values associated
with those potential water quality improvements or
deteriorations is a disadvantage for making proper choices
in water pollution control and clean-up activities. This
paper reports an economic valuation study conducted in

Economic analyses of development
projects and policies often involve assigning an economic
value to changes in the risk of loss of human life. A
typical term used in the economic analyses is the value of
statistical life, which reflects the aggregation of
individuals' willingness to pay for fatal risk
reduction and therefore the economic value to society to
reduce the statistical incidence of premature death in the

One of the major difficulties in doing
cost-benefit analysis of a development project is to
estimate the total economic value of project benefits, which
are usually multi-dimensional and include goods and services
that are not traded in the market. Challenges also arise in
aggregating the values of different benefits, which may not
be mutually exclusive. This paper uses a contingent
valuation approach to estimate the economic value of a

Albania is among the most vulnerable
countries to external energy shocks and climatic conditions,
because of its high dependency on hydropower for
electricity. Given highly volatile international energy
prices and expected global warming, it is becoming
increasingly important to manage the demand for electricity.
However, the country has long been faced with a significant
problem of electricity metering. About one-third of total

Although much has been written about
climate change and poverty as distinct and complex problems,
the link between them has received little attention.
Understanding this link is vital for the formulation of
effective policy responses to climate change. This paper
focuses on agriculture as a primary means by which the
impacts of climate change are transmitted to the poor, and
as a sector at the forefront of climate change mitigation

This paper addresses two vital concerns
in the debate on adaptation to climate change. First, how
can countries prepare to manage the impact of climate-change
induced natural disasters? Second, how can countries ensure
that they have the governmental institutions required to
manage the phenomenal challenge of adaptation to climate
change? A range of economic and institutional measures are
tested for their potential effects on natural disaster