ABSTRACT
Policy makers charged with environmental management are generally faced with a difficult task to start with because environmental interventions are usually perceived not as productive activities, but as breaks in economic activity. The task is even harder in developing and transitional economies in which environmental concerns are not only low on the list of priorities, but they are also perceived as drags on the development and restructuring efforts, because they compete for scarce resources and weigh down on the economy at its critical take-off stage.
