The effects of trade liberalization on environmental degradation
This paper uses a threshold model to estimate the regime-specific marginal effect of trade liberalization and other determinants of environmental degradation in regimes with different levels of corruption. The results show that increasing trade liberalization leads to an increase in carbon dioxide (<InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$\mathrm{{CO}_{2}}$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <msub> <mi mathvariant="normal">CO</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msub> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation>) emissions in countries with a high level of corruption but to an decrease in countries with low corruption. A U-shaped relationship between <InlineEquation ID="IEq2"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$\mathrm{{CO}_{2}}$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <msub> <mi mathvariant="normal">CO</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msub> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> emissions and income exists in low-corruption countries but not in high-corruption countries. Our results also show that an increase in energy use per $1,000 in gross domestic product and fossil-fuel energy consumption will increase <InlineEquation ID="IEq3"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$\mathrm{{CO}_{2}}$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <msub> <mi mathvariant="normal">CO</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msub> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> emissions in any country. Moreover, increases in agricultural value and foreign direct investment can decrease environmental degradation in any country. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015