India’s primary concern in the climate negotiations is to avoid having to make commitments it may come to regret. While this is a concern for all countries to some degree, it is much greater in a low-income country because the human and political cost of slowing economic growth is enormous at low income levels. Fortunately, the need for secure energy access, and to a lesser extent, local environmental concerns, are driving Indian policy in the direction of a massive expansion of renewable energy.

It is well-recognized that new technology is a crucial part of any solution to the problem of climate change. But since investments in research and development take time to mature, price and quantity instruments, i.e., carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, run into a commitment problem. We assume that the government cannot commit to the level of a policy instrument in advance, but sets the level to be optimal ex-post.

Access to safe drinking water is limited in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) at household level is among the primary sources of drinking water in the region and is widely practiced throughout Southeast Asia. It has recently been increasingly advocated as an alternative or supplemental approach to household water supply. However, relatively little research has been done on current RWH practices and attitudes. We interviewed residents of 619 households in three provinces to understand the current practice of and preferences for rainwater harvesting.

Farmers’ risk preferences play an important role in agricultural production decisions. This study characterizes risk preferences among farmers in Yongqiao and determines how these risk preferences are related to their choices regarding climate change adaptation strategies. We find that most farmers in the study area were aware of climate change. They were taking measures to protect their livelihoods against perceived changes to the local climate. The risk experiment result shows that the representative subject was risk averse, and women were more risk averse than men.

Understanding the motivations behind people’s voluntary contributions to public goods is crucial for the broader issues of economic and social development. By using the experimental design of Fischbacher, Gächter, and Fehr (2001), we investigate the distribution of contribution types in two developing countries with very high collectivism rating – Colombia and Vietnam – and compare our findings with those previously found in developed countries.

Public goods provision is essential for economic development. Yet there is limited evidence regarding contributions to local public goods in developing countries. This article analyses a field experiment where all 200 households in a village in rural Vietnam make real contributions to a public good that is very important for them in daily life—a bridge. We study the role of social influence (that people may be more willing to co-operate if others do) and the effects of the default alternative in the choice situation.

The rapid growth of aquaculture affects wild fisheries in several ways. We present a bioeconomic model of the interaction between a commercial wild fishery and capture‐based aquaculture that depends on harvest of wild juveniles. We assume that aquaculture reduces the intrinsic growth rate of the wild fish stock due to wild caught juveniles used as seeds, influencing wild stock size and commercial harvest. This may increase the economic conflicts between fishers and farmers. Introducing a marine protected area is expected to reduce these conflicts.

It is well-recognized that new technology is a crucial part of any solution to the problem of climate change. But since investments in research and development take time to mature, price and quantity instruments, i.e., carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, run into a commitment problem. We assume that the government cannot commit to the level of a policy instrument in advance, but sets the level to be optimal ex-post.

This paper presents a deterministic bioeconomic model in which the creation of a marine protected area (MPA) is not only a fisheries management tool but also introduced in order to provide tourism amenity benefits. The theoretical model is illustrated with analysis of the Nha Trang Bay (NTB) MPA in Khanh Hoa province in Vietnam, where the anchovy purse seine fishery is considered. An amenity value function of the NTB MPA is estimated from a discrete choice experiment among national tourists.