Trade Liberalization and Pollution in Turkey: An Empirical Re-evaluation of Pollution Heavens Hypothesis

Selahattin Bekmez and M. Faysal Gokalp

No 331273, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: After Customs Union with Europe in 1996, Turkey has put considerable efforts in trade liberalization policies. Some argues that such liberalization may have drawbacks for developing countries such as Turkey in regards to environmental concerns. Although economic liberalization stimulates economic growth and development, it also changes the structure and composition of the production. According to Pollution Heavens Hypothesis (PHH) which claims that some multi-national companies choose developing countries as a base in order to produce their polluting goods. In other words, these multinational firms intensify their polluting production in developing and/or underdeveloped countries. This is because these countries have more pollution absorbing capacity due to lack of industrial waste, less sensitivity towards the environment, lower per capita income, imperfectly defined property rights, etc. The study uses IPIC data test if PHH is valid for the Turkish industrial sector. Our findings indicate that while pollution scale effect increases over time, composition effect decreases. Necessary precautions should be taken in using the results due to data limitations.

Keywords: International Relations/Trade; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331273/files/1740.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:331273

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().