外商直接投资地区集聚效应与污染避难所假说外文翻译.docVIP

本科毕业论文外文翻译 出 处： Environ Resource Econ 原 文： Agglomeration Effects in Foreign Direct Investment and the Pollution Haven Hypothesis Ulrich J. Wagner · Christopher D. Timmins Does environmental regulation impair international competitiveness of pollution-intensive industries to the extent that they relocate to countries with less stringentregulation, turning those countries into “pollution havens”? We test this hypothesis using panel data on outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows of various industries in the German manufacturing sector and account for several econometric issues that have been ignored in previous studies. Most importantly, we demonstrate that externalities associated with FDI agglomeration can bias estimates away from finding a pollution haven effect if omitted from the analysis. We include the stock of inward FDI as a proxy for agglomeration and employ a GMM estimator to control for endogenous time-varying determinants of FDI flows. Furthermore, we propose a difference estimator based on the least polluting industry to break the possible correlation between environmental regulatory stringency and unobservable attributes of FDI recipients in the cross-section. When accounting for these issues we find robust evidence of a pollution haven effect for the chemical industry. 1 Environmental Regulation and Pollution Havens Does environmental regulation impair international competitiveness of pollution intensive industries to the extent that they relocate to countries with less stringent environmental regulations, turning those countries into “pollution havens”? This question has been the matter of a vigorous and controversial policy debate for years, and it continues to be of central interest to policy makers, public sector economists, and the general public. Recently, the issue has received attention in the context of assessing the environmental impacts of international trade agreements such as NAFTA an