Trade and Trees: How Trade Agreements Can Motivate Conservation Instead of Depletion

Arbeitspapier

Free trade can often lead to resource depletion, such as deforestation in the tropics. This paper first presents a dynamic model whereby the South (S) depletes to export the extracted units (timber) or the produce (beef) from land available after depletion. Because of the damages, the North benefits from trade liberalization only if the remaining stock is, in any case, diminished. For that reason, S speeds up exploitation. The negative results are reversed if the parties can negotiate a contingent trade agreement, whereby the allocation of gains from trade, and thus the location on the Pareto frontier, is sensitive to the size of the remaining stock. In equilibrium, S conserves to maintain its favorable terms of trade, S conserves more than in autarky, and more when the gains from trade are large. The parties cannot commit to future policies, but they obtain the same outcome as if they could.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 8569

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Trade and Environment ; Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations ; International Institutional Arrangements ; Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth ; Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation: Issues in International Trade
• Thema: exhaustible resources ; deforestation ; international trade ; trade agreements ; environmental conservation ; conservation goods ; renegotiation

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Harstad, Bård
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (wo): Munich
• (wann): 2020

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/226271
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:46 MEZ