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Optimal Environmental Border Adjustments Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Edward J. Balistreri
  • Daniel T. Kaffine
  • Hidemichi Yonezawa

Abstract

A country choosing to adopt border carbon adjustments based on embodied emissions is motivated by both environmental and strategic incentives. We argue that the strategic component is inconsistent with commitments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). We extend the theory of border adjustments to neutralize the strategic incentive, and consider the remaining environmental incentive in a simplified structure. The theory supports border adjustments on carbon content that are below the domestic carbon price, because price signals sent through border adjustments inadvertently encourage consumption of emissions intensive goods in unregulated regions. The theoretic intuition is supported in our applied numeric simulations. Countries imposing border adjustments at the domestic carbon price will be extracting rents from unregulated regions at the expense of efficient environmental policy and consistency with international trade law. JEL classifications: F13, F18, Q54, Q56 Keywords: climate policy, border tax adjustments, carbon leakage, trade and carbon taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward J. Balistreri & Daniel T. Kaffine & Hidemichi Yonezawa, 2019. "Optimal Environmental Border Adjustments Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 19-wp591, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ias:cpaper:19-wp591
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    JEL classification:

    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q40 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - General
    • K33 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - International Law

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