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Article
Strategic environmental policy under free trade with transboundary pollution
Review of Development Economics
  • Harvey E Lapan, Iowa State University
  • Shiva Sikdar, Yonsei University
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
1-1-2011
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9361.2010.00589.x
Abstract

We analyze the effects of trade liberalization on environmental policies in a strategic setting when there is transboundary pollution.Trade liberalization can result in a race to the bottom in environmental taxes, which makes both countries worse off. This is not due to the terms of trade motive, but rather the incentive, in a strategic setting, to reduce the incidence of transboundary pollution. With command and control policies (emission quotas), countries are unable to influence foreign emissions by strategic choice of domestic policy; hence, there is no race to the bottom. However, with internationally tradable quotas, unless pollution is a pure global public bad, there is a race to the bottom in environmental policy. Under free trade, internationally nontradable quotas result in the lowest pollution level and strictly welfare-dominate taxes. The ordering of internationally tradable quotas and pollution taxes depends, among other things, on the degree of international pollution spillovers

Comments

This is a working paper of an article from Review of Development Economics 15 (2011): 1, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2010.00589.x .

Citation Information
Harvey E Lapan and Shiva Sikdar. "Strategic environmental policy under free trade with transboundary pollution" Review of Development Economics Vol. 15 Iss. 1 (2011) p. 1 - 18
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/harvey-lapan/38/