IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/anresc/v43y2009i1p235-250.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transboundary pollution, R&D spillovers and international trade

Author

Listed:
  • Slim Ben Youssef

Abstract

We consider a symmetric three-stage game played by a pair of regulator-firm hierarchies to capture the scale and technology effects. Each firm produces one good sold on the market. The production process generates pollution characterized by a fixed emission/output ratio, and cross-borders. Firms can invest in R&D in order to lower their emission/output ratio, and this activity is characterized by positive R&D spillovers. We show that R&D spillovers and the competition of firms on the common market help non-cooperating countries to internalize transboundary pollution more efficiently. Consequently, in most cases, when the positive externality increases, the levels of R&D and production increase while pollution decreases, implying an increase of the social welfare. However, in some other cases, pollution under common market increases with the R&D externality implying a decrease of the social welfare. Opening markets to the international trade leads to more investment in R&D and more production. In most cases, pollution under common market is lower than under autarky, implying a greater social welfare. Nevertheless, in some other cases, pollution under common market is higher than under autarky implying that opening markets deteriorates social welfare.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Slim Ben Youssef, 2009. "Transboundary pollution, R&D spillovers and international trade," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 43(1), pages 235-250, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:anresc:v:43:y:2009:i:1:p:235-250
    DOI: 10.1007/s00168-007-0198-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00168-007-0198-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00168-007-0198-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. d'Aspremont, Claude & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1988. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1133-1137, December.
    2. Santore, Rudy & Robison, H. David & Klein, Yehuda, 2001. "Strategic state-level environmental policy with asymmetric pollution spillovers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 199-224, May.
    3. Kjetil Bjorvatn & Guttorm Schjelderup, 2002. "Tax Competition and International Public Goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(2), pages 111-120, March.
    4. Copeland, Brian R & Taylor, M Scott, 1995. "Trade and Transboundary Pollution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 716-737, September.
    5. Barbara J. Spencer & James A. Brander, 1983. "International R & D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 707-722.
    6. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 2004. "Environmental taxation, tax competition, and harmonization," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 21-45, January.
    7. Werner Antweiler & Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2001. "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 877-908, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Hoel & Rolf Golombek, 2004. "Climate Agreements and Technology Policy," Working Papers 2004.90, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    2. Ben Youssef, Slim & Zaccour, Georges, 2014. "Absorptive Capacity, R&D Spillovers, Emissions Taxes and R&D Subsidies," Strategic Behavior and the Environment, now publishers, vol. 4(1), pages 41-58, April.
    3. Ben Jebli, Mehdi & Ben Youssef, Slim, 2014. "Timing of adoption of clean technologies, transboundary pollution and international trade," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-31.
    4. Ben Youssef, Slim & Dinar, Zeineb, 2009. "Régulation d'un duopole et R&D environnementale [Regulation of a duopoly and environmental R&D]," MPRA Paper 20596, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2010.
    5. Ben Youssef, Slim, 2009. "Transboundary Pollution and Absorptive Capacity," MPRA Paper 17158, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Golombek, Rolf & Hoel, Michael, 2004. "Unilateral emission reductions when there are cross -country technology spillovers," Memorandum 17/2004, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Zeineb Dinar, 2014. "Transboundary Pollution, R&D Spillovers, Absorptive Capacity and International Trade," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 4(3), pages 501-513.
    8. Shuhua Chang & Suresh P. Sethi & Xinyu Wang, 2018. "Optimal Abatement and Emission Permit Trading Policies in a Dynamic Transboundary Pollution Game," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 542-572, September.
    9. Dinar, Zeineb, 2013. "Transboundary pollution, R&D spillovers, absorptive capacity and international trade," Economics Discussion Papers 2013-23, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Li, Shaoshuai & Li, Zhigang & Ni, Jinlan & Yuan, Jia, 2023. "Growing pains for others: Using holidays to identify the pollution spillover between China and South Korea," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Chang, Shuhua & Qin, Weihua & Wang, Xinyu, 2018. "Dynamic optimal strategies in transboundary pollution game under learning by doing," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 139-147.
    12. Shiyue Zhang & Alan R. Collins & Xiaoli L. Etienne & Rijia Ding, 2021. "The Environmental Effects of International Trade in China: Measuring the Mediating Effects of Technology Spillovers of Import Trade on Industrial Air Pollution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-25, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zeineb Dinar, 2014. "Transboundary Pollution, R&D Spillovers, Absorptive Capacity and International Trade," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 4(3), pages 501-513.
    2. Cheng, Haitao, 2021. "Trade, Consumption Pollution and Tax," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-106, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. Rikard Forslid & Toshihiro Okubo & Mark Sanctuary, 2017. "Trade Liberalization, Transboundary Pollution, and Market Size," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 927-957.
    4. Haitao Cheng, 2023. "Consumption pollution and taxes with endogenous firm locations and different market sizes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(6), pages 1601-1632, December.
    5. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Nasreen, Samia & Ahmed, Khalid & Hammoudeh, Shawkat, 2017. "Trade openness–carbon emissions nexus: The importance of turning points of trade openness for country panels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 221-232.
    6. Joanna Poyago-Thotoky, 2003. "Optimal Environmental Taxation, R&D Subsidization and the Role of Market Conduct," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 15-26, Spring.
    7. Dermot Leahy & J. Peter Neary, 2000. "Robust Rules for Industrial Policy in open Economies," Working Papers 200021, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    8. Besanko, David & Tong, Jian & Wu, Jianjun, 2016. "Subsidizing research programs with "if" and "when" uncertainty in the face of severe informational constraints," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 1605, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    9. Odagiri, Hiroyuki & Nakamura, Yoshiaki & Shibuya, Minoru, 1997. "Research consortia as a vehicle for basic research: The case of a fifth generation computer project in Japan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 191-207, May.
    10. Moinul Islam & Keiichiro Kanemoto & Shunsuke Managi, 2016. "Impact of Trade Openness and Sector Trade on Embodied Greenhouse Gases Emissions and Air Pollutants," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 20(3), pages 494-505, June.
    11. Joanna Poyago-Thotoky, 2003. "Optimal Environmental Taxation, R&D Subsidization and the Role of Market Conduct," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 15-26, Spring.
    12. Amir, Rabah & Wooders, John, 2000. "One-Way Spillovers, Endogenous Innovator/Imitator Roles, and Research Joint Ventures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-25, April.
    13. Raghbendra Jha & John Whalley, 2001. "The Environmental Regime in Developing Countries," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 217-250, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Neary, J Peter & Leahy, Dermot, 2000. "Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy towards Dynamic Oligopolies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(463), pages 484-508, April.
    15. Svetlana Batrakova & Ronald Davies, 2012. "Is there an environmental benefit to being an exporter? Evidence from firm-level data," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(3), pages 449-474, September.
    16. Ben Jebli, Mehdi & Ben Youssef, Slim, 2014. "Timing of adoption of clean technologies, transboundary pollution and international trade," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-31.
    17. Linda Kleemann & Awudu Abdulai, 2013. "The Impact Of Trade And Economic Growth On The Environment: Revisiting The Cross‐Country Evidence," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 180-205, March.
    18. Mulatu, Abay & Gerlagh, Reyer & Rigby, Dan & Wossink, Ada, 2009. "Environmental Regulation and Industry Location," Economic Theory and Applications Working Papers 47176, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    19. Fabio Antoniou & Panos Hatzipanayotou & Michael S. Michael & Nikos Tsakiris, 2019. "On the Principles of Commodity Taxation under Interregional Externalities," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 03-2019, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    20. J. Peter Neary, 1998. "Pitfalls in the Theory of International Trade Policy: Concertina Reforms of Tariffs, and Subsidies to High‐Technology Industries," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(1), pages 187-206, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    D62; F12; H21; O32;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:anresc:v:43:y:2009:i:1:p:235-250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.