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4 - The Trade Effects of Environmental Provisions in Preferential Trade Agreements

from Part II - Top-Down: Public Approaches to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Axel Berger ,
Clara Brandi ,
Jean-Frederic Morin  and
Jakob Schwab
Edited by
Cosimo Beverelli ,
Jürgen Kurtz  and
Damian Raess
Cosimo Beverelli
Affiliation:
World Trade Organization
Jürgen Kurtz
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence
Damian Raess
Affiliation:
World Trade Institute, University of Bern
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Summary

The international community has acknowledged that international trade can be an effective means of helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Traditionally, preferential trade agreements (PTAs) were designed to promote trade flows. PTAs have become more comprehensive and now also cover non-economic policy areas, such as the environment. This chapter examines whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in PTAs changes the observed overall positive contribution that PTAs make to economic outcomes and thereby to the economic objectives of the SDGs. Specifically, we ask whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in PTAs reduces export flows between PTA partner countries. Using a novel data set on environmental provisions in PTAs, we estimate gravity type panel regressions. We find that membership in PTAs including more environmental provisions is associated with less trade among trade partners compared to PTAs that include less or no environmental provisions. This negative effect of environmental provisions is fully driven by the negative effect on South–North trade flows, i.e. exports from developing to high-income countries.

Keywords

Preferential Trade AgreementsSustainable Development GoalsEnvironmental ProvisionsTrade FlowsGravityProtectionismDeveloping Countries
Type
Chapter
Information
International Trade, Investment, and the Sustainable Development Goals
World Trade Forum
 , pp. 111 - 139
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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