Are environmental provisions of RTAs effective in mitigating natural resource depletion? Evidence from fisheries[Les provisions environnementales des accords commerciaux sont-elles efficaces face à la disparition des ressources naturelles ? Le cas des pêcheries]

The last decades have witnessed an increase in both the number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and in their depth, as their reach has extended far beyond trade policy. In particular, post-NAFTA agreements tend to include provisions related to various environmental objectives. The effectiveness of such provisions on environmental outcomes is sometimes questioned because many of them are not binding. Recent advances in the inventory and typology of existing provisions have allowed the economic literature to assess their impact on the level of polluting emissions or on deforestation. This article aims at measuring the impact of environmental provisions on the state of fish stocks. The potential endogeneity of fishery-related provisions is controlled with a difference-in-differences (DID) propensity score matching method. Using data on the state of fish stocks, and a recent database of environmental provisions included in all trade agreements signed since 1947, we estimate the impact of both signing a free trade agreement, and of the fishery-related provisions on the state of fish stocks for 726 RTAs signed in the period 1947-2018. Our results suggest that while trade agreements tend to worsen the state of fish stocks, the presence of fishery-related provisions tends to offset this negative outcome among the signatory countries. We explore the type of provisions driving this effect and discuss potential mechanism