Essays in trade and environment: The environmental effects of intraindustry trade.

摘要

Environmental concerns are at the center stage of current global debates on issues ranging from climate change to natural resource conservation. Anthropogenic sources of environmental degradation include development activities undertaken to increase economic growth and welfare. In the late twentieth century, industrialization characterized the developmental paths of countries seeking to modernize and to raise per capita incomes. Countries that engage in international trade expand their potential beyond domestic borders to reach a global and richer market. As globalization becomes an important aspect of economic development, countries with accelerated growths in dirty industries are viewed as contributing to the deterioration of environmental problems such as global warming, deforestation and resource depletion. Globalization, it is argued, leads to the expansion of pollution-intensive production which causes harm to the environment.;It is widely recognized that international trade raises economic welfare. The succeeding question is, if production is pollution intensive, does international trade necessarily lead to detrimental effects on the environment? Is there evidence to suggest that trade is beneficial or harmful to the environment?;This dissertation explores the environmental implication of the engagement of trade in differentiated, dirty goods. The first essay entitled Monopolistic Competition, Trade and the Environment, presents three analyses. First, it develops a trade-and-environment framework for an economy that produces differentiated, pollution-intensive (or dirty) goods. The production of dirty goods is shown to lead to three environmental effects, namely, the scale, technique and selection effects. Second, it presents a comparative statics analysis of the effects of a change in environmental policy on the firm's level of abatement, product price, consumption, the scale of production and the number of firms in the economy. Third, it examines the relationship between openness to trade and the environment. The impact of intra-industry trade is shown to be the sum of the scale, technique and selection effects. In the second essay, Intra-industry Trade and the Environment, the general framework developed in the first essay is modified to allow for a constant-elasticity of substitution (CES) utility function. It shows, unambiguously, that free trade does not lead to detrimental environmental effects. A comparative statics analysis shows that an increase in the stringency of environmental policy generates a negative technique effect and neutral scale and selection effects. In the third essay, How Does Infra-industry Trade Affect the Environment?, the integrated theoretical predictions of the pollution models of intra-industry as wells as inter-industry trade are tested using panel-data methods. Statistical evidence suggests the following. First, the emissions of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds are increasing in the selection, scale, technique and composition effects. Second, the selection effect is an important and relevant variable in the estimation of the full impact of international trade on emissions level. Third, results conform to the realizations of data generated by the framework of intra-industry as well as of inter-industry trade. Fourth and finally, greater openness to trade or increased trade liberalization, leads to a decrease in emissions level.