IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2005.52.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Trade Obligations: A Theoretical Analysis of the Doha Proposal

Author

Listed:
  • Alireza Naghavi

    (PSE, Ecole Normale Supèrieure)

Abstract

The Doha declaration on trade and environment proposed to clarify the relationship between multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) trade obligations and WTO rules by only guaranteeing economic integration upon ratification of certain MEAs. In other words, it pushed to authorize the use of trade measures against non-compliance, denying a non-signatory of its WTO rights to exercise countervailing tariffs. This paper demonstrates that the Doha proposal can be effective when environmental policy and its trade obligations are endogenous. Under plausible circumstances, ratification by a non-signatory to the MEA along with free trade as a reward is the unique equilibrium outcome. Delocation to pollution havens does not occur, as optimal tariffs are positive if standards are not adopted. Tariffs however only work as a credible threat and do not emerge in equilibrium. Results are consistent with broad empirical evidence that opposes the pollution haven hypothesis and suggests capital movements to be non-pollution related.

Suggested Citation

  • Alireza Naghavi, 2005. "Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Trade Obligations: A Theoretical Analysis of the Doha Proposal," Working Papers 2005.52, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.52
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2005-052.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zigic, Kresimir, 2000. "Strategic trade policy, intellectual property rights protection, and North-South trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 27-60, February.
    2. Motta, Massimo & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1994. "Does environmental dumping lead to delocation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 563-576, April.
    3. Alistair Ulph & Laura Valentini, 2001. "Is Environmental Dumping Greater when Plants are Footloose?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(4), pages 673-688, December.
    4. Ulph, Alistair & Valentini, Laura, 2001. " Is Environmental Dumping Greater When Plants Are Footloose?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(4), pages 673-688, December.
    5. Markusen James R. & Morey Edward R. & Olewiler Nancy D., 1993. "Environmental Policy when Market Structure and Plant Locations Are Endogenous," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 69-86, January.
    6. Jean-Marie Grether & Jaime de Melo, 2004. "Globalization and Dirty Industries: Do Pollution Havens Matter?," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 167-203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Hoel, Michael, 1997. " Environmental Policy with Endogenous Plant Locations," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(2), pages 241-259, June.
    8. Javorcik Beata Smarzynska & Wei Shang-Jin, 2003. "Pollution Havens and Foreign Direct Investment: Dirty Secret or Popular Myth?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(2), pages 1-34, December.
    9. Nordström, Håkan & Vaughan, Scott, 1999. "Trade and the environment," WTO Special Studies, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division, volume 4, number 4.
    10. J. Peter Neary, 2004. "Europe on the Road to Doha: Towards a New Global Trade Round?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 50(2), pages 319-332.
    11. Michael Hoel, 1997. "Environmental Policy with Endogenous Plant Locations," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(2), pages 241-259, June.
    12. Eskeland, Gunnar S. & Harrison, Ann E., 2003. "Moving to greener pastures? Multinationals and the pollution haven hypothesis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-23, February.
    13. Barrett, Scott, 1997. "The strategy of trade sanctions in international environmental agreements," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 345-361, November.
    14. Carraro, Carlo & Siniscaico, Domenico, 1994. "Environmental policy reconsidered: The role of technological innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 545-554, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter H. Egger & Christoph Jessberger & Mario Larch, 2013. "Impacts of Trade and the Environment on Clustered Multilateral Environmental Agreements," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 331-348, March.
    2. Peter Egger & Christoph Jeßberger & Mario Larch, 2011. "Trade and investment liberalization as determinants of multilateral environmental agreement membership," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(6), pages 605-633, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Naghavi, Alireza, 2010. "Trade sanctions and green trade liberalization," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 379-394, August.
    2. Robert Elliott & Ying Zhou, 2013. "Environmental Regulation Induced Foreign Direct Investment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 141-158, May.
    3. Imad Moosa, 2019. "The Environmental Effects of FDI: Evidence from MENA Countries," Working Papers 1321, Economic Research Forum, revised 21 Aug 2019.
    4. Masako Ikefuji & Jun-ichi Itaya & Makoto Okamura, 2016. "Optimal Emission Tax with Endogenous Location Choice of Duopolistic Firms," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(2), pages 463-485, October.
    5. Francesca Sanna-Randaccio & Roberta Sestini & Ornella Tarola, 2017. "Unilateral Climate Policy and Foreign Direct Investment with Firm and Country Heterogeneity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(2), pages 379-401, June.
    6. Noha Elboghdadly & Michael Finus, 2020. "Strategic Climate Policies with Endogenous Plant Location: The Role of Border Carbon Adjustments," Graz Economics Papers 2020-07, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    7. Naghavi, Alireza, 2007. "Can R&D-inducing green tariffs replace international environmental regulations?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 284-299, November.
    8. Yan, Yan & Li, Yi, 2023. "Technology spillovers, strategic environmental policy, and foreign direct investment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    9. Noha Elboghdadly & Michael Finus, 2022. "Strategic climate policy with endogenous plant location: The role of border carbon adjustments," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(6), pages 1266-1309, December.
    10. Nachtigall, Daniel, 2016. "Climate policy under firm relocation: The implications of phasing out free allowances," Discussion Papers 2016/25, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    11. Daniel Nachtigall, 2016. "Climate policy under firm relocation: The implications of phasing out free allowances," Working Papers 2016007, Berlin Doctoral Program in Economics and Management Science (BDPEMS).
    12. Daniel Nachtigall, 2019. "Dynamic Climate Policy Under Firm Relocation: The Implications of Phasing Out Free Allowances," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 473-503, September.
    13. Nelly Exbrayat & Stéphane Riou & Skerdilajda Zanaj, 2015. "Carbon tax, pollution and the spatial location of heterogeneous firms," Post-Print halshs-01211431, HAL.
    14. Nelly Exbrayat & Stéphane Riou & Skerdilajda Zanaj, 2021. "A global carbon tax? Why firm mobility and heterogeneity matters," DEM Discussion Paper Series 21-17, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    15. Eichner, Thomas & Runkel, Marco, 2014. "Subsidizing renewable energy under capital mobility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 50-59.
    16. De Santis Roberto A. & Stähler Frank, 2009. "Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Taxes," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 115-135, February.
    17. Scott McCracken, 2015. "The choice of commodity tax base in the presence of horizontal foreign direct investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(5), pages 811-833, October.
    18. Bouwe R. Dijkstra & Anuj Joshua Mathew & Arijit Mukherjee, 2011. "Environmental Regulation: An Incentive for Foreign Direct Investment," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 568-578, August.
    19. Ida Ferrara & Paul Missios & Halis Murat Yildiz, 2015. "Pollution havens, endogenous environmental policy, and foreign direct investment," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(1), pages 257-284, July.
    20. Odd Rune Straume, 2006. "Product Market Integration and Environmental Policy Coordination in An International Duopoly," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(4), pages 535-563, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental policy; WTO; Location of firms; Green tariffs; Multilateral environmental agreements; Doha declaration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.