1、1610 单词， 2935 汉字 外文翻译 原文 The Environment and Economic Globalization Material Source: Globalization: Whats NewAuthor: Frankel Regulation It will help if we clarify one more fundamental set of issues before we turn to the main subject of the chapter, the role of globalization per se. It is logical to
2、expect environmental regulation to cost something, to have a negative effect on measured productivity and income per capita. “There is no free lunch,” Milton Friedman famously said. Most tangible good things in life cost something, and for many kinds of regulation, if effective, people will readily
3、agree that the cost is worth paying. Cost-benefit tests and cost-minimization strategies are economists tools for trying to make sure that policies deliver the best environment for a given economic cost, or the lowest economic cost for a given environmental goal.Taxes on energy, for example, particu
4、larly on hydrocarbon fuels, are quite an efficient mode of environmental regulation if the revenue is “recycled” efficiently, while CAFstandards are somewhat less efficient differentiated CAF standards, for example,encouraged the birth of the SUV craze, and crude “command and control” methods are le
5、ss efficient still e.g., government mandates regarding what specific technologies firms must use. Some environmental regulations, when legislated or implemented poorly,can impose very large and unnecessary economic costs on firms, and workers, and consumers. Occasionally there are policy measures th
6、at have both environmental and economic benefits. Usually these “win-win” ideas constitute the elimination of some previously existing distortion in public policy. Many countries have historically subsidized the use of coal. The United States subsidizes mining and cattle grazing on federal land, and
7、 sometimes logging and oil drilling as well, not to mention water use.Other countries have substantial subsidies for ocean fishing. Elimination of such subsidies would improve the environment and save money at the same time - not just for the federal budget, but for aggregate real income as well. Ad
8、mittedly the economistsapproach ? taxing gasoline or making ranchers pay for grazing rights ? is often unpopular politically. Another idea that would have economic and environmental benefits simultaneously would be to remove all barriers against international trade in environmental equipment and ser
9、vices, such as those involved in renewable energy generation, smokestack scrubbing, or waste treatment facilities. There would again be a double pay-off: the growth-enhancing effect of elimination barriers to exports in a sector where the United States is likely to be able to develop a comparative a
10、dvantage, together with the environment-enhancing effect of facilitating imports of the inputs that go into environmental protection. A different school of thought claims many opportunities for saving money while simultaneously saving the environment. The Porter Hypothesis holds that a tightening of
11、 environmental regulation stimulates technological innovation and thereby has positive effects on both the economy and the environment - for example, saving money by saving energy. The analytical rationale for this view is not entirely clear. Is the claim that any sort of change in regulation, regar
12、dless in what direction, stimulates innovation, or is there something special about environmental regulation? Is there something special about the energy sector? Its proponents cite a number of real-world examples where a new environmental initiative turned out to be profitable for a given firm or i
13、ndustry.Such cases surely exist, but there is little or no evidence that a link between regulation and productivity growth holds as a matter of generality. The hypothesis is perhaps better understood as making a point regarding “first mover advantage.” That is, if the world is in the future to be mo
14、ving in a particular direction, such as toward more environmentally friendly energy sources, then a country that innovates new products and new technologies of this sort before others do will be in a position to sell the fruits to the latecomers. Effects of openness to trade The central topic of thi
15、s chapter is the implications of trade for the environment. Some effects come via economic growth, and some come even for a given level of income. In both cases, the effects can be either beneficial or detrimental. Probably the strongest effects are the first sort, via income. Much like investment,
16、technological progress, and other sources of growth, openness tends to raise income via classical comparative advantage - that is, each country specializes in doing what it does best ? as well as via dynamic effects such as innovation. Higher income in turn has an effect on some environmental measur
17、es that is initially adverse but, according to the Environmental Kuznets Curve, eventually turns favorable. What about effects of trade and investment that do not operate via economic growth? They can be classified in three categories: systemwide effects that are adverse, systemwide effects that are
18、 beneficial, and effects that vary across countries depending on local “comparative advantage.” Race to the bottom The “race to the bottom” hypothesis is perhaps the strongest basis for fearing that international trade and investment specifically rather than industrialization generally will put down
19、ward pressure on countries environmental standards and thus damage the environment. Leaders of industry, and of the unions whose members are employed in industry, are always concerned about competition from abroad. When domestic regulation raises their costs, they fear that they will lose competitiv
20、eness against firms in other countries. They warn of a loss of sales, employment, and investment to foreign competitors. Often domestic producers sound the competitiveness alarm as a way of applying political pressure on their governments to minimize the burden of regulation. To some, the phrase “ra
21、ce to the bottom” connotes that the equilibrium will be a world of little or no regulation. Others emphasize that, in practice, it is not necessarily a matter of globalization leading to environmental standards that literally decline over time, but rather retarding the gradual raising of environment
22、al standards that would otherwise occur. Either way, the concern is that, to the extent that countries are open to international trade and investment, environmental standards will be lower than they would otherwise be. But how important is this in practice? Economists research suggests that environm
23、ental regulation is not one of the more important determinants of firms ability to compete internationally. When deciding where to locate, multinational firms seem to pay far more attention to such issues as labor costs and market access than to the stringency of local environmental regulation. Once
24、 again, it is important to distinguish 1 the fear that globalization will lead to a race to the bottom in regulatory standards, from 2 fears that the environment will be damaged by the very process of industrialization and economic growth itself. Opening of national economies to international trade
25、and investment could play a role in both cases, but the two possible channels are very different. In the first case, the race to the bottom, the claim is that even for a given path of economic growth, openness undermines environmental standards. This would be a damning conclusion, because it would i
26、mply that by limiting trade and investment in some way, we might be able to attain a better environment for any given level of GDP. In the second case, the implication would be that openness only affects the environment in the way that investment, or education, or productivity growth, or any other s
27、ource of growth affects the environment. Gains from trade While the possibility that exposure to international competition might have an adverse effect on environmental regulation is familiar, less widely recognized and more surprising is the possibility of effects in the beneficial, which we will c
28、all the gains from trade hypothesis. Trade allows countries to attain more of what they want, which includes environmental goods in addition to market-measured output. How could openness have a positive effect on environmental quality, even for a given level of GDP per capita? One possibility concer
29、ns technological and managerial innovation. Openness encourages ongoing innovation. 13 It then seems likely that openness encourages innovation beneficial to environmental improvement as well as economic progress. A second possibility is an international ratcheting up of environmental standards. The
30、 largest political jurisdiction can set the pace for others. Within the United States, it is called the “California effect；” when the largest state sets high standards for auto pollution control equipment, for example, the end result may be similar standards in other states as well. The United State
31、s can play the same role globally. Multinational corporations MNCs tend to bring clean state-of-the-art production techniques from high-standard countries of origin, to host countries where they are not yet known, for several reasons: “First, many companies find that the efficiency of having a singl
32、e set of management practices, pollution control technologies, and training programmes geared to a common set of standards outweighs any cost advantage that might be obtained by scaling back on environmental investments at overseas facilities.Second, multinational enterprises often operate on a larg
33、e scale, and recognisethat their visibility makes them especially attractive targets for local enforcement officialsThird, the prospect of liability for failing to meet standards often motivates better environmental performance” - Esty and Gentry 1997, p.161 The claim is not that all multinational c
34、orporations apply the highest environmental standards when operating in other countries, but that the standards tend on average to be higher than if the host country were undertaking the same activity on its own . Corporate codes of conduct, as under the U.N. global compact, offer a new way that res
35、idents of some countries can pursue environmental goals in other countries. Furthermore, because trade offers consumers the opportunity to consume goods of greater variety, it allows countries to attain higher levels of welfare for any given level of domestically produced output, which, as before, will raise the demand for environmental quality. Again, if the appropriate institutions are in place, this demand for higher environmental quality will translate into effective regulation and the desired reduction in pollution.
