KeywordsMarket-based policy tools; payments for ecosystem services; enviromental governace; integrated conservation and development projects; ecosystem services. Correspondence AbstractIn this commentary we critically discuss the suitability of payments for ecosystem services and the most important challenges they face. While such instruments can play a role in improving environmental governance, we argue that over-reliance on payments as win-win solutions might lead to ineffective outcomes, similar to earlier experience with integrated conservation and development projects. Our objective is to raise awareness, particularly among policy makers and practitioners, about the limitations of such instruments and to encourage a dialogue about the policy contexts in which they might be appropriate.

Un résultat partagéà la fois par la littérature théorique et empirique est que la corruption a un effet négatif sur la croissance économique. Dans cet article, nous estimons les effets directs et indirects de la corruption sur la croissance économique en appliquant une analyse par régression. Les canaux de transmissions indirects, notamment les investissements, la politique commerciale, l'éducation et la stabilité politique, analysés dans notre étude, s'avèrent être significatifs dans l'explication des effets nuisibles de la corruption sur le taux de croissance de l'économie. Nos estimations montrent qu'une augmentation de l'écart type de l'indice de corruption est associée à une diminution des investissements de 2.46%, ce qui à son tour entra�ne une diminution de la croissance économique de 0.34% par an. Le second canal de transmission, par ordre d'importance, est le degré d'ouverture de l'économie: une augmentation de l'écart type de l'indice de corruption est associée à une diminution de 0.19 % de l'indice d'ouverture, résultant en une diminution de la croissance économique de 0.30% par an. Pris dans leur ensemble, les canaux de transmission expliquent 81% des effets de la corruption sur la croissance. La lutte contre la corruption étant un combat qui se conçoit sur le long terme, comprendre les canaux de transmission à travers lesquels la corruption affecte l'économie peut permettre de limiter ses effets négatifs, bien qu'indirects, sur la croissance. Copyright WWZ and Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag AG 2004.

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We survey and assess the empirical literature on the sources of corruption Thanks to the improved availability of data, we are able to produce an improved cross-country econometric model to test well-established and more recent hypotheses jointly. We do not find that the common law system, or a past as a British colony predicts corruption. Our results support cultural theories on the causes of corruption, and suggest that a medium-long exposure to uninterrupted democracy is associated with lower corruption levels, while political instability tends to raise corruption. Our results also suggest that the diffusion of newspapers helps to lower corruption levels.

One of the main features of contemporary development politics in Latin America is the prominent role of the state. Another feature is the intensification of natural resource extraction. This extractivist drive is especially pronounced in the countries that are part of the 'turn to the left', which have at the same time played host to alternative development approaches. While Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have become emblematic of these processes, their impact can be felt across much of the region. These changes have emerged within a particular context in which the electoral successes of the leaders in power have been underwritten by promises to eradicate what has been seen as the two cardinal sins of neoliberal policies: poverty and inequality. Eschewing aggressive redistribution, they have sought to achieve redistributive extractivism accompanied with largely expanded expenditure for social policies. An 'extractive imperative' was thus borne as natural resource extraction came to be seen simultaneously as sources of income and employment generation and financing for increased social policy expenditure. According to this imperative, extraction needs to continue and expand regardless of prevailing circumstances, with the state playing a leading role and capturing a large share of the ensuing revenues.