Trade and the environment: an empirical analysis
| Responsable du projet |
Jean Marie Grether
Jaime De Melo Laurent Viguier |
| Résumé |
The project aims at providing orders of magnitude regarding the
relationship between trade and polluting emissions at the
world-wide level. Overall, the obtained results suggest that trade
is not necessarily bad for the environment. One reason to worry is
that differences in environmental regulations seem to motivate
dirty production to locate in countries with weak environmental
standards (usually poor countries). However, this effect is often
more than counterbalanced by the opposite force arising from the
fact that dirty goods are capital-intensive, which provides a
comparative advantage to capital-rich countries, where
environmental standards are high. Regarding SO2 emissions, it is
shown that trade contributed, although modestly, to the recent
decline in global emissions by allowing, on average, the cleanest
countries to specialize in the production of dirty goods. Finally,
CO2 per capita emissions, which diverge between countries at the
global level, tend to converge within members of preferential trade
areas, although the precise role of trade in this context has still
to be clarified. |
| Mots-clés |
trade, environment, pollution haven, growth decomposition, convergence |
| Type de projet | Recherche fondamentale |
| Domaine de recherche | Economie politique |
| Source de financement | FNS (Encouragement de projets Div. I-III) |
| Etat | Terminé |
| Début de projet | 1-10-2005 |
| Fin du projet | 30-9-2006 |
| Budget alloué | 38'248 |
| Contact | Jean-marie Grether |