Empirical surveys find no significant impact of environmental regulation and environmental costs on international competitiveness. We show that this is a logical consequence of the principle of comparative advantage. Other explanations can be that developed countries have very diversified...

We empirically investigate the responsiveness of international trade to the stringency of environmental regulation. Stringent environmental regulation may impair the export competitiveness of ‘dirty’ domestic industries, and as a result, ‘pollution havens’ emerge in countries where...

Empirical surveys find no significant impact of environmental regulation and environmental costs on international competitiveness. In the literature, we can find three hypotheses on the impact of environmental regulation. For the industrial-flight and pollution-haven hypothesis, there is no...