Can Trade Policy Mitigate Climate Change?

IF 7.1 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Econometrica Pub Date : 2025-09-16 DOI:10.3982/ECTA20153

Farid Farrokhi, Ahmad Lashkaripour

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Trade policy is often cast as a solution to the free-riding problem in international climate agreements. This paper examines the extent to which trade policy can deliver on this promise. We incorporate global supply chains of carbon and climate externalities into a multi-country, multi-industry general equilibrium trade model. By deriving theoretical formulas for optimal carbon and border taxes, we quantify the maximum efficacy of two trade policy solutions to the free-riding problem. Adding optimal carbon border taxes to existing tariffs proves largely ineffective, delivering only 3.4% of what could be achieved under globally optimal carbon pricing. In contrast, Nordhaus's (2015) climate club framework, in which border taxes are used as contingent penalties to deter free-riding, can achieve 33–68% of the globally optimal carbon reduction, depending on the initial coalition (EU, EU + US, or EU + US + China). In all cases, the climate club ensures universal compliance, thereby preserving free trade.

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贸易政策能减缓气候变化吗？

在国际气候协议中，贸易政策常常被视为解决搭便车问题的办法。本文考察了贸易政策能在多大程度上实现这一承诺。我们将碳和气候外部性的全球供应链纳入一个多国、多行业的一般均衡贸易模型。通过推导最优碳税和边境税的理论公式，我们量化了两种贸易政策解决搭便车问题的最大功效。事实证明，在现有关税基础上增加最优碳边境税基本上是无效的，仅相当于全球最优碳定价所能实现的效果的3.4%。相比之下，诺德豪斯（2015）的气候俱乐部框架，其中边境税被用作可能的惩罚来阻止搭便车，可以实现全球最优碳减排的33-68%，这取决于最初的联盟（欧盟、欧盟+美国或欧盟+美国+中国）。在所有情况下，气候俱乐部都确保了普遍遵守，从而维护了自由贸易。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Econometrica 社会科学-数学跨学科应用

CiteScore

11.00

自引率

3.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6-12 weeks

期刊介绍： Econometrica publishes original articles in all branches of economics - theoretical and empirical, abstract and applied, providing wide-ranging coverage across the subject area. It promotes studies that aim at the unification of the theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic problems and that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking. It explores a unique range of topics each year - from the frontier of theoretical developments in many new and important areas, to research on current and applied economic problems, to methodologically innovative, theoretical and applied studies in econometrics. Econometrica maintains a long tradition that submitted articles are refereed carefully and that detailed and thoughtful referee reports are provided to the author as an aid to scientific research, thus ensuring the high calibre of papers found in Econometrica. An international board of editors, together with the referees it has selected, has succeeded in substantially reducing editorial turnaround time, thereby encouraging submissions of the highest quality. We strongly encourage recent Ph. D. graduates to submit their work to Econometrica. Our policy is to take into account the fact that recent graduates are less experienced in the process of writing and submitting papers.