The effect of border controls on waste imports: Evidence from China's Green Fence campaign

Meng Sun

China Economic Review, 2019, vol. 54, issue C, 457-472

Abstract: The international trade of waste has been an important and growing part of the global economy during the last two decades, which imposes regulatory challenges to governments in the South to protect the environment. This paper investigates the effect of border controls with a difference-in-difference design by exploiting a unique natural experiment, China's Operation Green Fence (OGF) implemented in 2013. We find that the OGF exerted a significant deterrent effect on the waste imported into China. Specifically, we find that the import weight of waste grew by 9.48 percentage less and the import price declined by 7.6 percentage more compared to those of the non-waste. The results are robust to a series of robustness checks, and there is no similar reaction in other regions, where the OGF was not initiated.

Keywords: International trade of waste; China's Operation Green Fence; Difference-in-difference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 F64 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:54:y:2019:i:c:p:457-472

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2019.02.009

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