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Environmental economics was the subject of a successful research programme in the 1960s and 1970s. This programme dealt with such a wide range of environmental issues and policy problems that Partha Dasgupta, in a recent survey of the subject [see Dasgupta (1990)], claimed the primary environmental issues are now ‘very cold’as topics for analytical investigation, and ‘dead’as research problems.

The examples provided by Dasgupta, from the foundations of environmental taxes, to the informative characteristics of tradeable emission permits, to the notion of ‘sustainable development’, are certainly appropriate. In the last few years, however, scientists have highlighted a set of ‘new’environmental problems-such as ozone layer depletion, global warming, deforestation, the loss of bio-diversity-which share some common features: close links with economic development; intrinsic uncertainty; a pervasive international dimension. These issues require further research and development as they raise new questions, or propose old questions in a new context. Many of these questions derive from the international dimension of environmental phenomena, an issue which is interesting both in terms of theory and policy. As a consequence, we think that problems originating from the international dimension of environmental phenomena and policies are neither cold nor dead, but deserve serious analysis which must be integrated with the existing analytical and policy tools.