The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On International Trade In Polluting Industrie

Under the background of increasing economic globalization and global climate change,more and more attention has been paid to the relationship between international trade and environmental change.On the one hand,"pollution haven hypothesis" predicts that trade liberalization will drive pollution intensive industries out of countries with stringent environmental regulations and into countries with less stringent regulations,which may reduce the competitive advantage of export trade.On the other hand,"Porter hypothesis" suggests that well-designed environmental regulation can stimulate technological innovation and offset the cost of compliance with regulations,so that environmental regulations can not only improve the environment but also enhance international competitiveness.The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of environmental regulation on export competitiveness of polluting industries.First,the export data of six polluting industries from 2000 to2020 are used to calculate the revealed comparative advantage(RCA)of polluting industries,and the correlation between environmental regulation and RCA value is analyzed.On the whole,we did not find a negative impact of environmental regulation on the comparative advantage of trade in polluting industries.In most countries,there is a positive correlation between environmental regulation and RCA value,while in a few developed and developing countries,RCA is negatively affected by strict environmental regulation.Second,the paper focuses on the use of the United Nations Trade data and the distance between the two countries(CEPII)data,under the framework of Anderson and Van Wincoop theoretical gravity model of trade to test the effects of environmental regulations on total exports of polluting industries,exports of non-resource polluting industries and exports of six major specific polluting industries from 2000 to 2014 using fixed effects.The results show that :(i)the environmental regulation of exporting country has a significant positive effect on the total export of polluting industries,the export of non-resource polluting industries and and the export of five specific polluting industries except manufactures of metals;Both developed and developing countries as exporters show positive trade effects of environmental regulations,which provides certain evidence for "porter hypothesis";(ii)The influence of environmental regulation in importing country on the total export of polluting industries and the export of non-resource polluting industries is uncertain,and varies with the selection of environmental regulation proxy indicators.In addition,it also shows strong industry heterogeneity;(iii)All empirical results show that the scale effect represented by the product of GDP of the two countries has always been the main determinant of export trade of polluting industries,and environmental regulation is only an important determinant.Thus,it is not a good policy for exporting countries to reduce the stringency of environmental regulations to gain trade competitiveness in polluting industries.Strict environmental regulations may improve the competitiveness of countries by increasing the ability of products in polluting industries to meet the environmental standards of importing countries as a result of innovation,proving that the double dividend of environmental regulations may be realised.