Abstract
AbstractThis research note examines whether trade competition abets regulatory races in the environmental area. To analyze trade competition, we develop a new measure, structural equivalence, which assesses competitive threats that a country faces from other countries whose firms export the same products to the same destination countries. Employing this new measure, we analyze air pollution intensity (sulfur dioxide or SO2) and water pollution intensity (biochemical oxygen demand or BOD) for a panel of 140 countries for the time period 1980–2003. We find that trade competition is a significant predictor of water pollution intensity among structurally equivalent countries. We then test separately whether trade competition abets upward and downward regulatory races. We find that in the case of water pollution, countries respond symmetrically to downward and upward races, that is, they follow their structurally equivalent competitor countries both when they ratchet down their regulations and when they ratchet up regulations. In the case of air pollution, however, countries are responsive to downward policy changes only in competitor countries.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Law,Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management,Political Science and International Relations,Sociology and Political Science
Reference43 articles.
1. Fostering Environment Efficiency through Transnational Linkages? Trajectories of CO2 and SO2, 1980–2000
2. Kahler Miles . 1998. Modeling Races to the Bottom. Manuscript. Available at ⟨http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/014/6739.pdf⟩. Accessed 2 April 2010.
3. Model specification in the analysis of spatial dependence
4. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 2008. Foreign Direct Investment Database. Available at ⟨http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1923⟩. Accessed 2 April 2010.
5. Strategic Choice and International Relations
Cited by
76 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献