Common Ground Between Free-Traders and Environmentalists

Larry Karp, Sandeep Sacheti and Jinhua Zhao

No 25042, CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: We use a North-South model with property right differences and resource dynamics to study the effects of trade on resource use and welfare. Autarky is likely to Pareto-dominate free trade in the long run when the environment is quite fragile, and the result is reversed when the environment is quite resilient. Trade may cause an environmentally poor country to drag down" its richer trading partner; in this case, both countries degrade their stocks when these would be preserved under autarky. Alternatively, trade may enable the environmentally richer country to pull up" its partner; in this case both countries preserve their stocks when these would be degraded under autarky. These results rationalize the positions of environmentalists and free-traders. The direction of trade may change over time, but in steady states it is either inefficient or indeterminate. In the former case, a switch to autarky would increase global welfare.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50
Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/25042/files/wp990817.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Common Ground between Free-Traders and Environmentalists (2001)
Working Paper: Common Ground Between Free-Traders and Environmentalists (2001)
Working Paper: Common ground between free-traders and environmentalists (1999)
Working Paper: Common Ground Between Free-traders and Environmentalists (1997)
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:ucbecw:25042

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.25042

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CUDARE Working Papers from University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().