Diffusion of energy efficient technologies for cooking, heating, lighting, electrical appliances, and building insulation in developing countries has been slow. Governmental policies to influence household energy consumption are often contradictory and have brought mixed results. Five Policy Studies Policy development for promoting sustainable production and consumption has focused in recent years on economic instruments, such as environmental taxes and emission trading systems, often integrated into regulatory regimes. Regulations can ensure that policy objectives are met, while economic incentives can reduce the costs of meeting objectives, generate revenues to facilitate cleaner production and social development, and build political support for the policies. Network industries are often organized as vertically integrated public monopolies.
Recent trends indicate the participation of the private sector.
Developing and transition economies need to establish adequate regulatory policies and institutions to provide incentives for private sector participation and to protect public interests. New regulatory policies entail the creation of market competition in such industries or alternatively the creation of competition for the market. Nevertheless, we will offer some recommendations concerning natural monopoly privatization and regulation. However, additional measures are needed to achieve sustainable tourism development. The author addresses these and some other related questions by revisiting the relevant theories and empirical modeling frameworks.