Global Pollution: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model of Pigouvian Taxation

It could be inferred from the externality literature that, in the absence of lump sum transfers between countries, global Pigouvian taxation would make pollution-intensive countries worse-off. This paper uses the "strong version" of the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model to demonstrate that a uniform Pigouvian tax shifts the terms-of-trade in favor of the polluting good so that on balance a more polluting country could be better-off and a less polluting country worse-off. This result is consistent with some empirical observations on environmental policy in industrialized countries as compared with that in newly developing countries.