The influence of the environmental legislation on international trade

Abstract

This Thesis analyzes the interactions of two important variables: environment and trade, through different angles, in order to provide an overview of the topic. We analyze environment and Trade, through legal provisions, economic theoretical models, and empirical researches. Our results, suggest that international cooperation in environmental law, and freer trade can improve the environment in multiple cases of intra-industry trade. That is because in uniform cooperative cases, there are many advantages in social welfare and profits such as less pollution and high revenues from trade. On the other hand, some countries are characterized as pollution heavens, due to laxer environmental regulations. Furthermore, this thesis comments how variables such as transfrontier pollution, and trade barriers affect the basic interactions of trade and environment. The reduction of trade barriers such as import tariffs, is an alternative choice to control both environment and trade, and the solution, in a world that countries more and more exploit the environmental laws to promote their own trade interest.