| By: |
Miguel Angel Quiroga (Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Concepción);
Martin Persson (Department of Energy and Environment Chalmers University of Technology Sweden);
Thomas Sterner (Department of Economics, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: |
We study whether lax environmental regulations induce comparative advantages,
causing the least-regulated countries to specialize in polluting industries.
We seek to improve three areas in the empirical literature based on the
Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek’s factor content of trade, more specifically in Tobey’s
(1990) approach: the measurement of environmental endowments, the possible
endogeneity due to an omitted variable that has not been considered, and the
influence of the industrial level of aggregation. For the econometrical
analysis, we use a cross-section of 71 countries to examine the net exports in
the most polluting industries in the year 2000. As a result, we find that
industrial aggregation matters and we find some evidence in favor of the
pollution-haven effect. |
| Keywords: |
trade, comparative advantage, pollution haven, environmental endowment,environmental regulation, Porter hypothesis, factor content, aggregation bias, nonhomothetic preferences. |
| Date: |
2009 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnc:wpaper:03-2009&r=res |