 Have international pollution protocols made a difference?Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2020, vol. 103, issue C Abstract: Evaluating the effectiveness of international agreements is inherently difficult due to problems such as self-selection, spillovers, anticipation effects, and aggregate-level data. In this paper, I provide new and arguably more credible estimates on the effects of three major pollution protocols on SO2, NOx, and VOC emissions. I do so by combining a newly available global dataset on emissions dating back to 1970 with a generalized version of the synthetic control method. By constructing “synthetic” controls that mimic the pre-treatment development of each affected country, I mitigate bias caused by self-selection and non-parallel emission trends. The broader data coverage - both geographically and over time - allows me to examine the importance of spillovers and anticipation effects. Results from the estimation show that all three protocols induced emissions reductions well beyond a (synthetic) counterfactual development. Keywords: International environmental agreements; Pollution; Emissions; Synthetic control method (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:103:y:2020:i:c:s0095069620300814 DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102358 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier |
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