The Triple Inefficiency of Uncoordinated Environmental Policies

When pollution is transboundary and there is international trade, a domestic inefficiency may arise in addition to the well‐known inefficiencies at the international level. More precisely, there will be a Nash equilibrium in which each country chooses a policy that gives it lower welfare than would otherwise be possible given the emission levels of all countries. However, there will also be a Nash equilibrium in which each country chooses tradable emission quotas as its policy instrument to achieve its desired level of emissions. In this Nash equilibrium, welfare in each country is maximised given the emission levels of all countries.     

加快环境成本内部化,积极应对反生态倾销

战略性环境政策论者认为,如果一国试图实现社会福利的最大化,就会使边际减污成本小于污染的边际损害,在不完全竞争的世界中,一国会在战略上扭曲其环境政策,以支持其产业在国际市场上的竞争,从而论证了生态倾销的可能性。本文基于对生态倾销及反生态倾销的理解,针对我国传统贸易模式中生态倾销的现状进行分析,提出我国应加快环境成本内部化,积极宣传环保理念,利用反生态倾销的机会调整我国出口结构,采取妥善措施,达到环境保护和自由贸易的平衡,积极应对新一轮贸易挑战。     

Trans-boundary Pollution and Brain Drain Migration

The economic effects of international brain drain migration in the presence of trans‐boundary pollution are analyzed. In autarky, both skilled and unskilled workers are expected to migrate from the less developed foreign country to the developed home country, if permitted. Surprisingly, under certain conditions, all workers, apart from skilled foreign ones, will gain (lose) from the migration of unskilled (skilled) foreign workers. Moreover, if skilled foreign workers are employed as unskilled domestic workers, then skilled foreign workers will gain but unskilled workers in both countries will lose. Whether or not skilled domestic workers will gain depends on the magnitude of the pollution spillover parameter. Brain drain migration persists under free trade if the demand for manufactured goods is strong.     

Transboundary Pollution and International Migration

We analyze the welfare effects of international migration in the presence of transboundary pollution. We use a simplified Copeland and Taylor (1999) model, where the (developed) home country's pollution abatement technology is superior to that of the (less developed) foreign country. If there is no trade, workers will migrate from the foreign country to the home country. The foreign country gains from migration, but whether the home country gains or not depends on the abatement‐technology gap and the magnitude of the coefficient of transboundary pollution. World welfare will increase under migration. If there is free trade in goods, international migration occurs when the home country specializes in the production of the environmentally sensitive good. In this case, migration will result in increased production of the manufactured good and increase the level of world pollution.     

环境成本内在化对发展中国家的影响及对策

随着世界经济的发展和全球范围内环境保护浪潮的兴起,可持续发展已经成为国际社会的共识,环境成本内在化则是一种必然趋势,发展中国家的环境污染和过度使用的状况已经非常严重,如果不及时治理,会危及生存和发展.由于各国经济发展水平不一,发展中国家的环境标准相对较低,内在化的外部成本增长率较小,产品的国际竞争力较强,利润的增长率较大,被发达国家认为是"生态倾销",被贸易保护主义者利用;目前,制定一套有理、有度、有节、操作性强,能被广泛接受的国际准则来规范和推动环境成本内在化十分必要,特别是发展中国家更应积极地采取对策,协调贸易发展与环境保护的关系.     

Strategic interoperability standards and trade taxes

In a two-country international trade framework, the paper considers the interplay between the governments' incentives for conducting traditional trade policies and their incentives for the policies toward compatibility between the products of the firms competing in the international market. The model assumes that one domestic and one foreign firm supply partially incompatible products for the home country market while consumers value both variety and a network externality. Motivated by the benefits of the network externality, the home government sets a standard requiring the foreign firm to guarantee a minimum level of compatibility between its own product and the product of the domestic rival. The paper analyzes the home country standard setting and import tariff policies as well as the incentives of the foreign country for imposing the export tax and conducting a policy which enhances the degree of compatibility between the rival products in the export market.     

稀土资源税对“寡头”国出口市场势力的影响研究

笔者主要从税收转嫁的角度分析“寡头”国的稀土资源税政策对其出口市场势力的潜在影响,在系统把握我国稀土产业链上下游布局,理清稀土生产、加工以及贸易结构的基础上,通过改变国内稀土生产函数,研究使得稀土贸易市场出清条件下的税收价格转移弹性.分析表明:“寡头国”资源税的征收除了倒逼国内稀土行业整合,提高行业集中度之外,还可以将部分的税负转嫁到国际市场,增加稀土出口市场势力和贸易利得.     

Transboundary Pollution and the Welfare Effects of Technology Transfer

We examine the welfare effects of a transfer of pollution abatement technology in a two-country model. In each country, one industry discharges pollution as a byproduct of output, and the sum of domestic and cross-border pollution decreases the productivity of the other industry. We show the effects of technology transfer on the terms of trade, pollution levels, and welfare. Technology transfer decreases the pollution affecting each country under certain conditions. We derive and interpret the conditions under which technology transfer enriches the donor and the recipient. The results essentially depend on the trade pattern and the fraction of cross-border pollution.     

The Strategic and Effective Dimensions of the Border Tax Adjustment

Between 2001 and 2011, the Kyoto Protocol has experienced defections of two countries that took part in its negotiation and accounted for around 44% of all parties' emissions. The border tax adjustment, a tax levied on imports to reproduce domestic taxation on similar goods, is advocated to prevent such compliance failures as well as to support unilateral pollution regulations by mitigating firms' competitiveness losses and carbon leakages. The paper investigates whether this trade instrument can constitute a decentralized solution to achieve the first‐best in a noncooperative framework. It develops a two‐country two‐firm reciprocal‐market model of trade with global pollution and country heterogeneity. Countries' interactions are studied following a noncooperative game theory approach, for two scenarios defined by the possibility to implement a border tax adjustment to sanction unilateral deviation from the cooperative situation. The paper predicts first that this opportunity modifies the countries' choices of strategies toward more compliance; second that among the strategic and effective dimensions of the border tax adjustment, only the former allows to achieve the first‐best; finally that the border tax adjustment fosters countries' participation in the cooperative international environmental agreement.     

Cross-Border Pollution,Terms of Trade,and Welfare

We construct a two-good general equilibrium model of international trade for two small open economies where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Governments in both countries impose emission taxes non-cooperatively. Within this framework, we examine the effect of changes in the degree of cross-border pollution on Nash emission taxes, emission levels and welfare. We do so under two scenarios: when changes in cross-border pollution do not affect domestic pollution (non-strategic) and when they do (strategic). We also examine the effect of changes in international terms of trade on pollution and welfare when cross-border pollution is non-strategic.      

Trade,Strategic Environmental Policy,and Global Pollution

This paper examines the effects of international trade in a model with global pollution that accumulates over time because of production emissions in each country. If countries cooperatively determine their environmental policies, autarky and free trade in the absence of trade costs generate the same optimal solution. By contrast, if environmental policies are determined noncooperatively, the effects of trade on global pollution and welfare are ambiguous because policy games can result in multiple equilibria. Although trade increases both the lower and upper bounds of the pollution stock, whether trade expands the range of possible steady‐state pollution levels is ambiguous. The analysis then extends to consider trade costs.     

Linking Absolute and Comparative Advantage to Intra-Industry Trade Theory*

Two countries, which differ with respect to domestic demand for two groups of differentiated products, are considered in a setting of monopolistic competition where international trade is subject to transaction costs. It is shown that relative differences in demand determine the trade pattern. Each country is a net exporter of that group for which domestic demand is relatively larger-where the country has a comparative home-market advantage. Absolute differences in demand determine relative wages. Thus, the paper argues that the notions of absolute and comparative advantage as found in traditional trade theory also have meaning in new trade theory.     

International treaties on trade and global pollution

The paper shows that global pollution need not rise under free trade in goods and/or emissions even in the complete absence of income effects. Differences in environmental concerns across the countries lead to differences in the pollution intensity of production and, thus, generate the possibility of increasing world output and income without increasing the world pollution by shifting the production of the polluting good from the country with higher pollution intensity of production to the country with lower one. We show that free trade in goods and/or emissions can induce precisely such a shifting of production with the country with greater environmental concern exporting the polluting good. The paper also demonstrates the possibility of a first-best international treaty on global pollution in which each country or group of countries is better-off.     

经济发展与能源产业政策协调研究

我国经济的发展和能源的高耗低效增长方式加剧了能源供需矛盾,能源的供需紧张关系成为制约我国经济发展的瓶颈。笔者首先对我国能源产业的发展状况进行了回顾,然后对能源产业所面临的突出问题进行深入分析,针对能源产业结构现状,提出了增加国内能源供应,加强能源的国际合作,适时调整能源国际贸易政策与重视国际石油期货市场作用等政策性建议。     

从比较优势到竞争优势——转变我国外贸方式

我国对外贸易长期实行比较优势战略,取得较大经济剩余,但也出现贸易条件恶化与贫困化增长的局面.随着国际、国内经济形势的变化,我国的比较优势战略呈现出不适性.我国外贸必须进行战略调整,建立在资源禀赋与比较成本基础上的比较优势将逐步减弱,从比较优势战略转向注重大力发展高科技、优化产业结构的竞争优势战略.通过技术创新、降低成本,进而通过自身努力培育强大的国际竞争力,使我国外贸能得到持续稳定的发展.     

Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in China

The success of China's economic development has left deep marks on resource availability and quality. Some regions in China are relatively poor with regards to water resources. This problem is exacerbated by economic growth. Flourishing trade activities on both domestic and international levels have resulted in significant amounts of water withdrawal and water pollution. Hence the goal of this paper is to evaluate the current inter-regional trade structure and its effects on water consumption and pollution via ‘virtual water flows’. Virtual water is the water embedded in products and used in the whole production chain, and that is traded between regions or exported to other countries. For this assessment of trade flows and effects on water resources, we have developed an extended regional input-output model for eight hydro-economic regions in China to account for virtual water flows between North and South China. The findings show that the current trade structure in China is not very favorable with regards to water resource allocation and efficiency. North China as a water scarce region virtually exports about 5% of its total available freshwater resources while accepting large amounts of wastewater for other regions' consumption. By contrast, South China a region with abundant water resources is virtually importing water from other regions while their imports are creating waste water polluting other regions' hydro-ecosystems.     

Regulated Firms with Transboundary Pollution: Does International Competition Improve Efficiency?

We consider a model of strategic trade and environmental policies with transboundary pollution. A regulated monopoly produces in each country and emits pollution. Under complete information, opening borders leads to a reallocation of the production from the large country to the small one. Total production increases, leading to an increase in the total level of pollution. The creation of a common market sometimes leads to a deterioration of total welfare. Under asymmetric information, the international competition generated by the common market decreases the informational rents of the firms, thereby reinforcing the potential gain to open markets to international competition.     

中国光伏产品遭遇“双反”调查后的思考

随着中国在国际市场上的地位不断上升,国际贸易摩擦日益断加剧。2011年底以来,中国接连遭遇欧美对中国光伏产品的"双反"调查(即反倾销、反补贴调查),而且涉及的领域和范围不断扩大,这对中国的光伏产业发展造成了极大的冲击。从国内和国际等方面分析其原因,并提出应发挥行业协会的作用、推进光伏企业整合、拓展新兴国际市场和建立健全法律法规等应对措施。     

The theory of tariffs in a monetary economy

A two country two commodity model of international trade in a monetary context is utilized for the re-evaluation of the classical propositions in international trade theory which are usually derived under barter. A comparison of results under alternative exchange rate regimes is given. The effects of tariffs on the balance of payments and on domestic price levels is also studied.     

Outsourcing in a Global Economy

We study the determinants of the location of subcontracted activity in a general equilibrium model of outsourcing and trade. We model outsourcing as an activity that requires search for a partner and relationship-specific investments that are governed by incomplete contracts. The extent of international outsourcing depends inter alia on the thickness of the domestic and foreign market for input suppliers, the relative cost of searching in each market, the relative cost of customizing inputs and the nature of the contracting environment in each country.