Open Access Journal Article

Are greener RTAs reducing “dirty” exports?

by Li Cao a orcid ,  Dahai Fu a,* orcid  and  Ying Zhang b
a
School of International Trade and Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
b
Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
EAL  2023, 36; 2(4), 36; https://doi.org/10.58567/eal02040002
Received: 18 March 2023 / Accepted: 8 July 2023 / Published Online: 17 July 2023
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Abstract

We examine the impact of environmental provisions in regional trade agreements (RTAs) on the environmentally harmful exports. Results show that environmental clauses in RTAs help reduce “dirty” exports, whereas RTA depth promotes exports. The exporting country may divert its polluting exports to its trading partner if it faces more environmental provisions with other countries.

Keywords: Regional trade agreements; environmental provisions; gravity model; trade diversion;
Copyright: © 2023 by Cao, Fu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.