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Pollution Policy and Liberalization of Trade in Environmental Goods

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  • Alain-Désiré Nimubona

    (Department of Economics, University of Waterloo)

Abstract

During the Doha Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO), reductions in trade barriers on environmental goods (EG) were put forward as a means of helping developed and developing countries alike deal with current environmental problems. We examine the potential effectiveness of such a strategy in countries that rely on imports for their needs in EG. We point out that liberalizing trade in EG might in fact lead to less stringent environmental regulations, resulting in an actual rise in pollution levels. We then show conditions under which the environmental effectiveness and the welfare improvement objective of this trade reform are compromised.

Suggested Citation

  • Alain-Désiré Nimubona, 2010. "Pollution Policy and Liberalization of Trade in Environmental Goods," Working Papers 1004, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised May 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:wat:wpaper:1004
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    File URL: http://economics.uwaterloo.ca/documents/10-004ADN.pdf
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    2. Lota Dabio Tamini & Sorgho Zakaria, 2016. "Trade in environmental goods: how important are trade costs elasticities?," Cahiers de recherche CREATE 2016-3, CREATE.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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