We study the determinants of comparative advantage in polluting industries. We combine data on environmental policy at the country level with data on pollution intensity at the industry level to show that countries with laxer environmental regulation have a comparative advantage in polluting...

This paper discusses the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ‘virtual trade’ in...

Barriers to trade in Environmental Goods (EGs) and Environmental Services (ESs) are documented for a large sample of countries and compared with barriers to trade in other goods and other services. Some progress at reduction in barriers has occurred at the national, regional and sectoral levels...

International trade policy analysis has tended to focus on the production side of general equilibrium, with policies such as a tariff or carbon tax affecting international and internal income distributions through a Heckscher-Ohlin nexus of factor intensities and factor endowments. Here I move...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because the global...

This paper develops a model of trade and CO2 emissions with heterogenous firms, where firms make abatement investments and thereby have an impact on their level of emissions. The model shows that investments in abatements are positively related to firm productivity and firm exports. Emission...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility with no meaningful binding agreement in sight as the global climate regime and...

We establish a theoretical as well as empirical framework to assess the role of resource endowments and their geographic location for inter-State conflict. The main predictions of the theory are that conflict tends to be more likely when at least one country has natural resources; when the...

We investigate the effect of natural resources on whether ethno-political groups choose to pursue their goals with peaceful as compared to violent means, distinguishing terrorism from insurgencies. We hypothesize that organizations are more likely to resort to terrorism rather than rebellion in...

This paper studies empirically the impact of mining on conflicts in Africa. Using novel data, we combine geo-referenced information over the 1997-2010 period on the location and characteristics of violent events and mining extraction of 27 minerals. Working with a grid covering all African...