Trade and Renewable Resources in a Second Best World: An Overview
Posted: 9 Sep 2005
Abstract
We provide an overview and introduction to the emerging field of trade and renewable resources, and discuss the potential impact of trade liberalization on welfare and resource conservation. A key factor determining the effect of trade reform is the institutional context or property right regime, and our survey is organized such that it loosely follows the development of new insights with respect to institutions in the literature. This implies a transition from the benevolent planner's model to the polar opposite benchmark of open access in the 1990's. Currently the pendulum is swinging back towards management and regulation, but institutions are treated as endogenous. We discuss and compare various key models in some detail and search for common ground between protagonists and antagonists of free trade.
Keywords: natural resource management, sustainability, trade and property rights, trade liberalization and environment, WTO
JEL Classification: F18, Q2, Q56
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