Trade, Growth, and the Environment

Abstract

For the last ten years environmentalists and the trade policy community have engaged in a heated debate over the environmental consequences of liberalized trade. The debate was originally fueled by negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations, both of which occurred at a time when concerns over global warming, species extinction and industrial pollution were rising. Recently it has been intensified by the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and proposals for future rounds of trade negotiations. The debate has often been unproductive. It has been hampered by the lack of a common language and also suffered from little recourse to economic theory and empirical evidence. The purpose of this essay is set out what we currently know about the environmental consequences of economic growth and international trade. We critically review both theory and empirical work to answer three basic questions. What do we know about the relationship between international trade, economic growth and the environment? How can this evidence help us evaluate ongoing policy debates? Where do we go from here?

Heterogeneous Human Capital and Environment Influence Mechanism of FDI: An Empirical Research Based on the Panel Data Derived from Provinces of China

“…Here the conclusion consistent with Lian et al [18]. We pay more attention on the environmental effects of FDI, which is based on the constraints of heterogeneous human capital and homogeneous component, and the equation (8) and (9) show these results.…”

“…Copeland and Taylor [18] concluded that FDI affect the host environment from three ways, including scale effect, structure effect and technology effect; Dean et al [19], Eskeland and Harrison [13] argued that the foreign capital can weaken the damage to the environment through technology diffusion effect; Caselli and Coleman [20] showed that developing countries hoped that environment friendly enterprise from technical leader bring in advanced technologies, but the absorption and application capabilities of such environmental friendly technologies are limited to the level of human capital of the country or region. Therefore, the level of human capital can affect the ability of the country or region to absorb the advance technologies, including emission reduction technology [21].…”

An Optimistic Analysis of the Means of Implementation for Sustainable Development Goals: Thinking about Goals as Means

“…Therefore, trade agreements are best considered as a kind of governance framework, rather than a direct MOI. Moreover, the main purpose of trade agreements is to promote increased trade volumes, while the actual economic and environmental effects of this trade may vary depending on specific circumstances [22][23][24]. Therefore, incorporating measures in trade agreements to ensure that their environmental, social, and economic effects are positive rather than negative should be considered a governance issue [25].…”

Forecasting The Path of U.S. CO2 Emissions Using State-Level Information

“…The main criticisms of this model, as Copeland and Taylor (2004) and Arrow et al (1995) point out, is that this reduced-form specification does not separate the income effect from other factors driving emissions. Recent work by Millimet, List, and Stengos (2003) and Harbaugh, Levinson, and Wilson (2002) casts doubt on the robustness of the EKC specification for local air pollutants.…”