Trade Policy and Natural Resource Use: The Case for a Quantitative Restriction

This paper presents a simple way for countries to reap the benefits of trade liberalization without exacerbating problems of overexploitation of natural resources. In the context of a Ricardo–Viner dynamic trade model, it is shown that when a binding quantitative restriction regulates extraction of a natural resource, free trade is optimal. This is true even if the quantitative restriction is not optimal. In contrast, in the presence of a suboptimal tax (including a zero tax in the special case of open access) on the use of natural resources, trade liberalization is not necessarily welfare improving.