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Trade, Environmental Regulations and the World Trade Organization |
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Saturday, July 18, 2009 |
The paper empirically explores the linkages between environmental regulations and international trade flows. So far, empirical studies either have failed to find any close statistical relationship or have delivered questionable results due to data limitations. Using a comprehensive new database for environmental regulations across countries, a thorough empirical investigation of that linkage for 119 countries and five high-polluting industries is performed. No evidence is found to support the pollution hypothesis that industries facing above-average abatement costs with environmental regulations would prefer pollution havens and relocate their activities. The exception is iron and steel products, where a negative and statistically significant link is established, implying that higher compliance with international treaties and conventions and more stringent regulations are associated with reduced net exports. High-income countries, where environmental regulations are usually more stringent in comparison to middle or low income countries, have experienced a considerable decline in the export-import ratio of iron and steel products since the late 1970s. There is no clear evidence that national governments choose sub-optimal policies that result in insufficient regulations, so the case for environmental standards within the WTO framework is relatively weak. Trade, Environmental Regulations and the World Trade Organization
Bu Matthias Busse, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3361, July 2004.
The past 15 years have seen an increasing debate over the linkages between trade and environmental regulations. In part, this debate has reflected concerns in developed countries that their competitive position would be eroded by environmental regulations that encourage pollution-intensive industries to move to countries with lower standards (the so-called pollution haven hypothesis). Environmentalists fear that increasing trade integration and the competition for investment and jobs may lead to a “race to the bottom” on environmental regulations, as national governments find it more difficult to internalize environmental and social costs in prices. Hence, trade unions and environmentalists usually demand binding international environmental standards, preferably within the framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ensure a “level playing field” for all exporters (Grether and De Melo 2003).
Based on standard trade models, economic theory would predict that a comparative advantage in pollution-intensive commodities would arise from relative factor endowments, that is, labor, capital, natural resources, and the stringency of environmental regulations (Van Beers and Van der Bergh 1996). It is well known that high-polluting industries, such as industrial chemicals or iron and steel, are highly capital intensive and require less labor in comparison to other manufacturing industries (Mani and Wheeler 1998). Environmental regulations, for instance, in a high-income country, with considerable abatement costs (as a percentage of total costs) would then lead to a relative cost disadvantage and a change in the relative comparative advantage in the production of “dirty” commodities toward countries with lower standards. As these industries move to lower-standards countries, not only the location of foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade patterns would be affected, but also overall pollution levels would increase.
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Submitted by Singapore
AIM
This paper seeks CTI's endorsement on a work programme framework for environmental goods and services (EGS) in APEC.
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