As globalization and trade liberalization have increased integration of the world economy through financial and trade flows, the role of FDI and trade on economic growth is becoming more influential. This paper investigates the impact of FDI on trade of the East Asian economic transition countries, namely the China, Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam, employing FDI flow and FDI stock data separately. The data from these four countries during the period 1990–2019 have been collected, and OLS and panel within fixed effect estimators are utilized. The main findings show that, first, when estimated using FDI flow as independent variable, there exists complementary effect between FDI and trade, and the coefficients are significant except for Cambodia. Second, when estimated using FDI stock as independent variable, the impact of FDI decreases and even substitutability effect is found in China at significant level. Third, in both cases, the coefficient of FDI is shown positive and significant in Vietnam. In addition, the paper finds the effects of human capital, GDP, and WTO accession on trade are positive, while the effects of exchange rate, financial development, and tariff rate vary among the East Asian economic transition countries.

We investigated the effect of agreements related to climate change on bilateral trade, using the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) estimator on a large dataset that requires computing high-dimensional fixed effects. This study develops the concordance between commodities based on harmonized systems (HS) and technologies defined by both international and cooperative patent classifications (IPC/CPC). Using the OECD ENV-TECH classification, covering 169 exporting countries and 179 importing countries worldwide from 1991 to 2019, we determined the relationship between HS commodities and IPC/CPC climate change technologies. The main findings show that, first, the Kyoto Protocol has increased international bilateral trade in the climate change industry, while the Montreal Protocol has led to the opposite effect. In addition, the impact of environmental stringency on international bilateral trade in climate-related industries was negative and significant, refuting the Porter Hypothesis. This result was consistent within the trade between the convention countries. Therefore, national and industrial perspectives are relative, and voluntary climate mitigation methods should be applied, considering the areas where carbon reduction is relatively difficult. In other words, the conventions and policies must shift to a global paradigm in environmental protection and a more inclusive approach, with recognition of diversity in governance types.