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Using input–output analysis, we examine whether India can be regarded as a pollution haven. We calculate the extra CO2, SO2 and NO x emissions induced by 1 billion rupees of additional exports. This is compared with the reduction of Indian pollution caused by an import increase of equal size. In contrast to what the pollution haven hypothesis states for developing countries, we find that India considerably gains from extra trade. Comparing 1996/1997 with 1991/1992, the gains have only increased, indicating that India has moved␣further away from being a pollution haven. The outcome is robust to changes in the underlying assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to inequality in distribution of private wealth and market imperfection if individual members in the society have access to different technologies for extraction of common property resources (CPR), resolving ‘collective action dilemma’ for efficient use of CPR through voluntary participation becomes a difficult task. To lend concreteness to the problem, in the context of Indian semi-arid rural society, this paper has chosen one among those very well-known CPR management problems, viz., conservation of water resources, for irrigation. With the help of a two-stage bargaining game model—with stage one, related to water harvesting and stage two, related to agricultural production—it shows in terms of an asymmetric Nash solution that different types of community programmes based on (i) equal entitlement right to water and (ii) switch over to less water intensive agricultural production cannot ensure successful equitable and efficient water management through voluntary participation. In the presence of inequality and market imperfection, the incentive mechanism to increase efficiency in water use for the purpose of conservation will enhance inefficiency outside the commons water periphery. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]