Why paper mills clean up: determinants of pollution abatement in four Asian countries

Raymond S. Hartman, Mainul Huq and David R. Wheeler

No 1710, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The authors find strong evidence that despite weak or nonexistent formal regulation and enforcement of environmental standards, many plants in South and Southea st Asia are clean. At the same time, many plants are among the world's worst polluters. To account for the extreme variation among plants, the authors review evidence from a survey of pollution abatement by 26 pulp and paper plants in four countries: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Thailand. They incorporate 3 sets of factors affecting pollution intensity: plant characteristics, economic considerations, and external pressure from the government and private stakeholders. They find that the level of pollution abatement is positively associated with scale and competitiveness, negatively associated with public ownership, and unaffected by foreign links (in ownership or financing). Informal regulation, or community pressure on plants works to abate pollution, with high income being a powerful predictor of effectiveness. Privatization, to the extent that it increases plant efficiency, can significantly improve environmental performance. To prevent environmental injustice in poor or marginalized communities, the authors conclude, governments may want to consider strategies for improving their participation, and may want to target regulation to address pollution problems among them.

Keywords: Sanitation and Sewerage; Pollution Management & Control; Environmental Economics & Policies; Water and Industry; Water Conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-01-31
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/738991468772774609/pdf/multi-page.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1710

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().