IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v109y1994i3p755-787..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

North-South Trade and the Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Brian R. Copeland
  • M. Scott Taylor

Abstract

A simple static model of North-South trade is developed to examine linkages between national income, pollution, and international trade. Two countries produce a continuum of goods, each differing in pollution intensity. We show that the higher income country chooses stronger environmental protection, and specializes in relatively clean goods. By isolating the scale, composition, and technique effects of international trade on pollution, we show that free trade increases world pollution; an increase in the rich North's production possibilities increases pollution, while similar growth in the poor South lowers pollution; and unilateral transfers from North to South reduce worldwide pollution.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 1994. "North-South Trade and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 755-787.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:109:y:1994:i:3:p:755-787.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/2118421
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dean, Judith M., 1992. "Trade and the environment : a survey of the literature," Policy Research Working Paper Series 966, The World Bank.
    2. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    3. McGuire, Martin C., 1982. "Regulation, factor rewards, and international trade," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 335-354, April.
    4. Lucas, Robert E.B. & Wheeler, David & Hettige, Hemamala, 1992. "Economic development, environmental regulation, and the international migration of toxic industrial pollution : 1960-88," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1062, The World Bank.
    5. James R. MARKUSEN, 2021. "International Externalities And Optimal Tax Structures," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 16, pages 341-355, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Baumol,William J. & Oates,Wallace E., 1988. "The Theory of Environmental Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521322249, January.
    7. Staiger, Robert W, 1988. "Organized Labor and the Scope of International Specialization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 1022-1047, October.
    8. Dornbusch, Rudiger & Fischer, Stanley & Samuelson, Paul A, 1977. "Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 823-839, December.
    9. Copeland Brian R., 1994. "International Trade and the Environment: Policy Reform in a Polluted Small Open Economy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 44-65, January.
    10. Pethig, Rudiger, 1976. "Pollution, welfare, and environmental policy in the theory of Comparative Advantage," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 160-169, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Rauscher, Michael, 2001. "International trade, foreign investment, and the environment," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 29, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    2. Sturm, Daniel & Ulph, Alistair, 2002. "Environment, trade, political economy and imperfect information: a survey," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0204, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    3. Rock, Michael T., 1996. "Pollution intensity of GDP and trade policy: Can the World Bank be wrong?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 471-479, March.
    4. Haixiao Huang, Walter C. Labys, 2002. "Environment and trade: a review of issues and methods," International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(1/2), pages 100-160.
    5. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    6. Blackman, Allen & Mathis, Mitchell & Nelson, Peter, 2001. "The Greening of Development Economics: A Survey," Discussion Papers 10662, Resources for the Future.
    7. Sturm, Daniel & Ulph, Alistair, 2002. "Environment, trade, political economy and imperfect information: a survey," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 204, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    8. Jayadevappa, Ravishankar & Chhatre, Sumedha, 2000. "International trade and environmental quality: a survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 175-194, February.
    9. M A Cole & R J R Elliott & K Shimamoto, 2003. "US Specialization in Pollution-Intensive Industries: Factor Intensities versus Environmental Regulations," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0321, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    10. Anriquez, Gustavo, 2002. "Trade And The Environment: An Economic Literature Survey," Working Papers 28598, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    11. Robert E. Kohn, 1991. "Global Pollution: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model of Pigouvian Taxation," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 337-343, Jul-Sep.
    12. Jie HE, 2005. "Economic Determinants for China’s Industrial SO2 Emission: Reduced vs. Structural form and the role of international trade," Working Papers 200505, CERDI.
    13. Cole, Matthew A. & Elliott, Robert J.R. & Shimamoto, Kenichi, 2005. "Why the grass is not always greener: the competing effects of environmental regulations and factor intensities on US specialization," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 95-109, July.
    14. Carol Lehr & John Maxwell, 2000. "Comparative Advantage, Trade, and Transboundary Pollution," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 205-227, July.
    15. Adam B. Jaffe et al., 1995. "Environmental Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Manufacturing: What Does the Evidence Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 132-163, March.
    16. Óscar Rodil-Marzábal & Hugo Campos-Romero, 2021. "The Intra-EU Value Chain: An Approach to Its Economic Dimension and Environmental Impact," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, April.
    17. M A Cole & R J R Elliott, 2003. "Do Environmental Regulations Influence Trade Patterns? Testing New and Old Trade Theories," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0310, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    18. Killinger, Sebastian & Schmidt, Carsten, 1997. "Nationale Umweltpolitik und internationale Integration: Theoretische Ansätze im Überblick," Discussion Papers, Series I 289, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    19. 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.
    20. Yu-Bong Lai, 2004. "Trade liberalization, consumption externalities and the environment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 17(5), pages 1-9.

    More about this item

    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:oup:qjecon:v:109:y:1994:i:3:p:755-787.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.