Industrial Pollution, Environmental Suffering and Policy Measures: An Index of Environmental Sensitivity Performance (Iesp)

An index of environmental sensitivity performance (IESP) is constructed in order to measure and quantify the comparative environmental sensitivity of countries. The main emphasis of IESP is to obtain an overall measure of sensitiveness instead of focusing on various indicators designed for particular environmental issues. The sub-indices, however, can also be utilised for specific environmental concerns. IESP is built to analyse empirically certain economic relationships that appeared firstly in the emergence of environmental regulations in industrial nations and secondly, in the debate over recent international agreements. The main findings of the IESP seem to be consistent with the disputes emphasising the growing sensitivity of the developed nations towards the industrial pollution relative to the developing nations. With a very few exceptions, developed countries appear to be stringent in the pursuit of the industrial environmental regulations. This general trend, which is consistent with the theoretical expectations, contributes to the value of the IESP as a quantitative instrument. Furthermore, the wider range of the countries' index values can be considered as promising in terms of utilising IESP in quantitative applications.