Trade agreements and incentives for environmental quality: A Western Hemisphere example

A simple conceptual model can illustrate the potential for trade and environment agreements to satisfy the objectives of „northern” countries concerned with environmental protection and „southern” countries pursuing export earnings. In a hypothetical empirical example, the United States offers preferential access to fruit juice imports from three Latin American countries in exchange for enhanced protection of farm workers potentially exposed to pesticides during fruit production. Results for this particular case suggest that the benefits of preferential access to the US market substantially outweigh the costs to Latin American countries of adopting pesticide safety regulations similar to those protecting US farm workers. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.