Can Developing Countries Learn from Our Mistakes?

It is often asserted that developing countries can best avoid the deterioration of the environment that is a consequence of the unfettered increase of motorization by studying the failure of industrialized countries to make the necessary political and resource commitments to confront the issue. Such assertions usually fail to recognize that differences in social objectives and both administrative and fiscal capacity typically exclude the application in developing countries of many of the restraining measures advocated for the industrialized world. Instead, it is argued that the development of efficient social and personal incentive systems, rather than the traditional emphasis on systems of subsidy, public sector service provision, and physical restraint, is the critical policy imperative for the developing world.