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The pollution terms of trade and its five components
Based on two extensions, this paper proposes a re-appraisal of the concept of the pollution terms of trade (PTT) introduced by Antweiler (1996). First, detailed data allows capturing the effect of differences in emission intensities across countries and over time. Second, relying on Johnson and Noguera (2012), the revised PTT index controls for trade in intermediate goods and is based on value-added rather than gross output figures. Applied to a database for SO2 emission intensities for 62 developed and developing countries over the 1990?2000 period, it turns out that the first extension has a larger empirical importance than the second one. The global pattern is one in which the major rich economies exhibit a PTT index below one (higher pollution intensity in imports than in exports). Trade imbalances tend to exacerbate this asymmetry, allowing rich economies to further offshore their pollution through trade.
Modelling Contributions to the Swiss Energy and Environmental Challenge
No abstract is available for this item.
Scale, Technique and Composition Effects in Manufacturing SO 2 Emissions
Trade and Climate Policies: Do Emissions from International Transport Matter?
No abstract is available for this item.
Political Economy Aspects of Climate Change Mitigation Efforts
No abstract is available for this item.
Unravelling the World-Wide Pollution-Haven Effect
This paper tackles the ?pollution haven? argument by estimating the pollution content of imports (PCI). The PCI is then decomposed into three components: (i) a ?deep? component (i.e. traditional variables unrelated to the environmental debate); (ii) a factor endowment component and (iii) a ?pollution haven? component reflecting the impact of differences in environmental policies. The estimation is carried out for 1987 for an extensive data set covering 10 pollutants, 48 countries and 79 ISIC four-digit sectors. Decompositions based on cross-section econometric estimates suggest a significant pollution haven effect, which increases the PCI of the North because of stricter environmental regulations in the North. At the same time, the factor endowment effect lowers the PCI of the North, as the North is relatively well-endowed in capital and pollution-intensive activities are capital intensive. On a global scale, because the bulk of trade is intra-regional with a high North-North share, these effects are small relative to the ?deep? determinants of the worldwide PCI. Robustness checks performed on a more recent dataset, but limited to sulphur dioxide, confirm these results. In sum, differences in factor endowments and environmental policies only marginally affected the PCI of world trade at the end of the 1980s.
Reconciling Trade and Climate Policies
The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because the global climate regime and the global trade policy regime, represented by the WTO, appear to be on a collision course. Following a review of the challenges ahead, the paper argues that trade will have a second-order contribution to world-wide CO2 emissions. Evidence shows increasing carbon transfers through trade, but the magnitude of carbon leakage effects, likely to be induced by differences in climate mitigation policies, may be less than feared in some circles. Trade policy, however, will play a role in implementing climate mitigation policies in two areas: maintaining an open trading system and hence boosting growth and facilitating technological diffusion, and trade policy as a strategic instrument in negotiations. The paper concludes that an agreement with a few guiding principles and leeway where much initial mitigation would first take place unilaterally or in small groups, as under the early days of the GATT, is the most promising way ahead while preserving an open trading system and environmental integrity.
Global Manufacturing SO2 Emissions: Does Trade Matter?
No abstract is available for this item.