Using a political economy approach, the authors analyze the pattern of protection in Mexico's manufacturing sector during the period of trade policy reforms (1985-89), when Mexico experienced significant trade liberalization and an important inflow of foreign direct investment. They take into...

During a period of trade liberalization (1985-89), when Mexican manufacturing experienced an important inflow of foreign direct investment, manufacturing sectors with heavy foreign direct investment received greater protection in import-competing sectors. With the move toward greater openness,...

This paper tackles the 'pollution haven' argument by estimating the pollution content of imports (PCI). The PCI is then decomposed into three components: a 'deep' component (i.e. traditional variables unrelated to the environmental debate); a factor endowment component and a 'pollution haven'...

This paper analyzes the institutional arrangements governing the international transfer of input-embodied new technologies in agriculture. While developed countries characteristically allow "multiple channel" private and public technological transfer, developing countries often force technology...

Combining unique data bases on emissions with sectoral output and employment data, we study the sources of the fall in world-wide SO2 emissions and estimate the impact of trade on emissions. Contrarily to concerns raised by environmentalists, an emission-decomposition exercise shows that scale...

We construct the world’s centers of gravity for human population, GDP and CO2 emissions by taking the best out of five recognized data sources covering the last two centuries. On the basis of a novel distorsion-free representation of these centers of gravity, we find a radical Western shift of...

This paper reviews arguments and evidence on the impact of globalization on the environment, then presents evidence on production and international trade flows in five heavily polluting industries for 52 countries over the period 1981-98. A new decomposition of revealed comparative advantage...

A growth-decomposition (scale, technique and composition effect) covering 62 countries and 7 manufacturing sectors over the 1990-2000 period shows that trade, through reallocations of activities across countries, has contributed to a 2-3 percent decrease in world SO2 emissions. However, when...

Do technologies embedded in imports boost domestic productivity? This paper investigates empirically the role of complementarities between absorptive capacity and imports. Different import categories are combined with different proxies for absorptive capacity. The database covers 18...