Trade Liberalization and Pollution Havens

Josh Ederington, Arik Levinson, and Jenny Minier ()
Additional contact information
Josh Ederington, Arik Levinson, and Jenny Minier: Department of Economics, Georgetown University, http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/aml6/
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Josh Ederington and Jenny Minier

Working Papers from Georgetown University, Department of Economics

Abstract: U.S. Presidential Executive Order 13141 commits the United States to a "careful assessment and consideration of the environmental impacts of trade agreements." The most direct mechanism through which trade liberalization would affect environmental quality in the U.S. is through changes in the composition of industries. Freer trade means greater specialization, increasing the concentration of polluting industries in some countries and decreasing it in others. Indeed, in this paper we predict a substantial reduction in U.S. pollution from 1972-94 due entirely to a shift in the composition of U.S. manufacturing toward cleaner industries. We then use annual industry-level data on imports to the U.S. to examine whether this compositional shift can be traced to the significant trade liberalization that occurred over the same time period; we conclude that no such connection exists. First, we find that a shift toward cleaner industries, similar to that observed in U.S. manufacturing, has also occurred among U.S. imports. Second, we find no evidence that pollution-intensive industries have been disproportionately affected by the tariff changes over that time period.

JEL-codes: F18 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-04-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/economics/pdf/405.pdf Full text (application/pdf)
None

Related works:
Working Paper: Trade Liberalization And Pollution Havens (2005)
Journal Article: Trade Liberalization and Pollution Havens (2004)
Working Paper: Trade Liberalization and Pollution Havens (2004)
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:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~04-04-05

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Roger Lagunoff Professor of Economics Georgetown University Department of Economics Washington, DC 20057-1036
http://econ.georgetown.edu/

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Georgetown University, Department of Economics Georgetown University Department of Economics Washington, DC 20057-1036.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marcia Suss ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).