Three essays on the interaction of international trade and environmental outcomes and policies

Economic literature on international trade identifies the sources of comparative advantage like endowments and technology that drive international trade and result in gains from trade. Comparative advantage is however also affected by environmental standards. Stricter environmental standards are commonly believed to erode an existing comparative advantage of developing countries and hence result in lower gains from trade. Based on this popular belief, developing economies might legislate weak environmental standards or fail to enforce existing standards in the hope of encouraging “dirty” industries. My essays take a more sophisticated look at the trade and environment relation and find that the relation between welfare gains from trade and environmental quality is not one of simple trade-off of one against the other as popularly believed

Damage Assessment Software Program

The software package described here deals with the assessment of damage inflicted by missiles carrying pre-fragmented, bomblet, incendiary, runway-denial penetration submunition (RDPS), smart munition, and terminallyguided submunition warhead. The targets to be neutralised could be static, semistatic or mobile, like runways,bridges, bunkers, armoured tanks, soft-skinned vehicles, and personnel. This is graphical user interface(GUI)-based software, where the user can specify the target dimensions, target types, the number of missiles, its aimpoint, the type of warhead and the mode of operation. The software gives the number of targets that have beenneutralised effectively, as the output. This GUI-based software has been developed using Microsoft Visual Basic,Version 6.0.Defence Science Journal, 2008, 58(6), pp.745-751, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.58.170

Voluntary Environmental Regulation in Developing Countries: Mexico's Clean Industry Program

Because conventional command-and-control environmental regulation often performs poorly in developing countries, policymakers are increasingly experimenting with alternatives, including voluntary regulatory programs. Research in industrialized countries suggests that such programs are sometimes ineffective because they mainly attract relatively clean participants free-riding on unrelated pollution control investments. We use plant-level data on more than 100,000 facilities to analyze the Clean Industry Program, Mexico’s flagship voluntary regulatory initiative. We seek to identify the drivers of participation and to determine whether the program improves participants’ environmental performance. Using data from the program’s first decade, we find that plants recently fined by environmental regulators were more likely to participate, but that after graduating from the program, participants were not fined at a substantially lower rate than nonparticipants. These results suggest that although the Clean Industry Program attracted dirty plants under pressure from regulators, it did not have a large, lasting impact on their environmental performance.voluntary environmental regulation, duration analysis, propensity score matching, Mexico

Remittances and income diversification in Bolivia's rural sector

This article examines the role of remittances in income diversification strategies in Bolivia's rural sector. Remittances can be consumed or invested by the recipient. As an investment, funds can be used for farming or to finance other nonfarm productions. In this article, we use a large and nationally representative survey to estimate the effect that remittances have on the probability of producing income from nonfarm activities (diversification) by using a bivariate probit model. Our evidence shows that remittances increase the probability that a rural family engages in nonfarm activities, at least in some regions of Bolivia. We also find evidence that the sender's decision to remit and the recipient's decision to diversify may be jointly determined. As such, this suggests that remittances may serve as a mechanism to overcome localized failures in Bolivia's capital markets

Voluntary environmental regulation in developing countries: Mexico's Clean Industry Program

Because conventional command-and-control environmental regulation often performs poorly in developing countries, policymakers are increasingly experimenting with alternatives, including voluntary regulatory programs. Research in industrialized countries suggests that such programs are sometimes ineffective, because they mainly attract relatively clean participants free-riding on unrelated pollution control investments. We use plant-level data on more than 100,000 facilities to analyze the Clean Industry Program, Mexico's flagship voluntary regulatory initiative. We seek to identify the drivers of participation and to determine whether the program improves participants' environmental performance. Using data from the program's first decade, we find that plants recently fined by environmental regulators were more likely to participate, but that after graduating from the program, participants were not fined at a substantially lower rate than nonparticipants. These results suggest that although the Clean Industry Program attracted dirty plants under pressure from regulators, it did not have a large, lasting impact on their environmental performance.Voluntary environmental regulation Duration analysis Propensity score matching Mexico