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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 environmental regulation is 'over-lax.' We examine the impact of pollution abatement and control costs on net exports in order to grasp this phenomenon. Theoretically, our analysis is related to a general equilibrium model of trade and pollution nesting the pollution haven motive for trade with the factor endowment motive. We analyze data on two-digit ISIC manufacturing industries during the period 1977–1992 in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, and show that trade patterns in 'dirty' commodities are jointly determined by relative factor endowments and environmental stringency differentials.

Is there a case to be made for preferential treatment of the exposed sector in an economy when compliance to an aggregate emissions constraint induced by an international environmental agreement is mandatory? This question is being debated in many countries, including The Netherlands, in the context of the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. We address this issue in a general equilibrium framework in this paper, and theoretically cover several market structures, including perfect competition, oligopoly and the large country case. Our main finding is that in many circumstances preferential treatment is not warranted from the point of view of maximizing social welfare.

The potential relationship between domestic environmental regulation and internationalcompetitiveness has evoked various speculations. The common neoclassical train of thought is thatstrict environmental regulation is detrimental to the competitiveness of industry, and that itinduces phenomena such as ecological dumping, ecological capital flight, and regulatory 'chill' inenvironmental standards. A different view is that strict environmental regulation triggers industry'sinnovation potential, and subsequently increases its competitiveness. The impact of environmentalregulation on competitiveness has been analyzed in terms of international capital movements, newfirm formation, and international trade. This paper focuses on a statistically rigorous analysis ofinternational trade studies, using a technique that is known as meta-analysis. The paper presentsa statistically supported evaluation of the literature, in order to assess what the main conclusionsregarding the relationship between environmental regulation and competitiveness are when itcomes to studies on international trade flows. The synthesis of the literature is subsequently usedto present guidelines for future primary research in this area.

AbstractSegregation by race, ethnicity and income is a persistent feature of US cities and communities, and ethnic enclaves have formed ever since immigration became more diverse. For low‐skilled immigrants in particular, settling in an ethnic enclave may offer important opportunities and facilitate coping with the new environment. However, immigrant enclaves may also foster occupational segregation and retard assimilation, with the willingness to invest in language acquisition playing a key role. This paper expands on earlier work focusing on the linkage between spatial segregation and language acquisition. Using data from the 2000 US Census, the study stratifies immigrants by their location in one of four metropolitan areas by educational attainment and national origin in order to determine the effect of these individual characteristics on English proficiency. The probability of speaking English was found to vary across the four locales and educational attainment. Language acquisition was highest in the metropolitan area where the immigrant share is smallest, and is increasing in educational attainment.ResumenLa segregación por raza, etnicidad e ingresos es una característica permanente en ciudades y comunidades de los EE.UU., y desde que la inmigración se volvió más diversa siempre se han formado enclaves étnicos. El establecerse en un enclave étnico, en particular para inmigrantes no cualificados, puede ofrecer importantes oportunidades y facilitar el hacer frente al nuevo ambiente. Sin embargo, los enclaves de inmigrantes pueden albergar también segregación ocupacional y retrasar la integración, y en ellos la voluntad de invertir en la adopción de la lengua idioma juega un papel clave. Este artículo amplía estudios anteriores y se centra en el vínculo entre la segregación espacial y la adopción de la lengua. El estudio utiliza datos del censo del año 2000 de los EE.UU. para estratificar inmigrantes según su localización en una de entre cuatro áreas metropolitanas y según su nivel académico y país de origen para determinar el efecto de estas características individuales en su dominio del inglés. Se encontró que la probabilidad de hablar inglés es diferente para las cuatro localizaciones y según el nivel académico. La adopción de la lengua fue mayor en el área metropolitana en que la proporción de inmigrantes es menor, y aumenta con el nivel académico.

Abstract With more than 50 percent of the European population (EU-24) living in rural areas and a renewed focus on stimulating smart, sustainable and socially inclusive growth, Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) are an important instrument for economic, social and environmental policies. Evaluating the impact of rural development programmes is, however, complicated due to the widely varying policy targets of RDPs as well as their substantial heterogeneity across rural areas. In this paper we use spatial econometric techniques to evaluate RDPs in the European Union, at the NUTS2 level, and focus specifically on labour productivity in the agricultural sector. To address the clear spatial patterns in the distribution of agricultural labour productivity, we employ regression models in which spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence are explicitly modelled to quantify the impact of RDPs.