TY  - JOUR
AU  - Copeland,Brian R.
AU  - Taylor,M. Scott
TI  - Trade, Growth and the Environment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9823
PY  - 2003
Y2  - July 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9823
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9823.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Brian Copeland
Department of Economics
The University of British Columbia
#997-1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC  V6T 1Z1 CANADA
E-Mail: copeland@econ.ubc.ca

M. Scott Taylor
IEE Canada Research Chair
Department of Economics
The University of Calgary
2500 University Drive, N.W.
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
CANADA
Tel: 403/220-8912
Fax: 403/282-5262
E-Mail: mstaylor@ucalgary.ca
AB  - For the last ten years environmentalists and the trade policy community have engaged in a heated debate over the environmental consequences of liberalized trade. The debate was originally fueled by negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations, both of which occurred at a time when concerns over global warming, species extinction and industrial pollution were rising. Recently it has been intensified by the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and proposals for future rounds of trade negotiations. The debate has often been unproductive. It has been hampered by the lack of a common language and also suffered from little recourse to economic theory and empirical evidence. The purpose of this essay is set out what we currently know about the environmental consequences of economic growth and international trade. We critically review both theory and empirical work to answer three basic questions. What do we know about the relationship between international trade, economic growth and the environment? How can this evidence help us evaluate ongoing policy debates? Where do we go from here?
ER  -