This paper investigates whether RTAs with environmental provisions affect relative and absolute pollution levels. In order to do so, the determinants of carbon dioxide emissions convergence are estimated for a cross--section of 182 countries over the period 1980 to 2008. A propensity score matching approach is combined with difference--in--differences techniques to effectively isolate the effect of the Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) variable. The usual controls for scale, composition and technique effects are added to the estimated model and the endogeneity of income and trade variables is modelled using instruments. The main results indicate that the CO 2 emissions of the pairs of countries that belong to an RTA with environmental provisions tend to converge and are lower in absolute terms, whereas this is not the case for RTAs without environmental provisions. As regards specific agreements, we find that emissions converge more rapidly for NAFTA than for EU--27 and Euro--Med countries. We find consistent evidence that only RTAs with environmental harmonization policies affect relative and absolute pollution levels.
The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of foreign direct investments (FDI) on food security for 55 developing countries in a panel framework over the period 1995-2009. There are various measures of food security that can be used. Our first contribution is to build a composite indicator that synthesizes the food indicators used by the Food and AgricultureOrganization to measure the food availability and food utilization. Second, our empirical study is based on a model composed of a food security equation and an agricultural production equation. Our results show that sectoral FDI have different effects on food security. FDI in the agriculture sector improves food security and FDI in the secondary and tertiary sector increases the food insecurity. We found a significant FDI's spillover through the agricultural production to food security. While the effect is positive with FDI in secondary sector, it is negative for FDI in the tertiary sector.
This paper analyzes industry adjustments to trade liberalization. It introduces cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as an alternative mode of industrial restructuring to firms' exit. In a two-country Cournot model, we examine the responses of domestic and foreign firms endowed with different technologies for different stages of trade openness. It is found that the less efficient firm loses market shares in its home market at the beginning of trade liberalization. Only for a more advanced level of liberalization, does it take advantage of a larger access to foreign demand. Trade liberalization may therefore harm its profits too strongly, forcing it to leave the market. However, although its incentives decrease with trade liberalization, the high-technology firm may be willing to take it over for low organizational and technological costs of firms' integration. In addition, it may buy it out even if the less efficient firm manages to stay. Then, trade liberalization affects M&A incentives depending on the technological gap. For low and high (medium) gap, there is an inverted U-(W-) shaped relation between trade costs and incentives to merge. Moreover,
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