Essays on Trade and Sustainable Development

Abstract

This dissertation comprises two essays, namely essay1 Export diversification, CO2 emissions and EKC: panel data analysis of 125 countries, essay2 Ecological Footprint, FDI and GDP: Evidence from Belt& Road Initiative (BRI) countries, These essays are included to analyze theory and applications of trade and sustainable development from distinctive perspectives. <br/> Chapter 1 explores the applicable stipulation of cross-country regression analysis of international trade and carbon emissions using data on export diversification across 125 countries from 2000 to 2014 at the HS4 digit of disaggregation. Export diversification is subdivided into vertical and horizontal diversification in order to justify its correlation with pollution emission through scale effect, technique effect as well as composition effect. A regression model with Driscoll and Kraay Standard Errors is employed to rectify the possible problems of heteroskedastic and autocorrelated error structure. Results demonstrate that both export market diversification and product diversification help CO2 emission mitigation in 125 countries. Besides, interaction terms of economic development and export diversification facilitate the comparison among different income levels: low income countries illustrate U-shaped relationship between economic development and CO2 emissions, while OECD countries still maintain inverted U-shaped EKC curve which is unanimous with the outcome of 125 countries in general.<br/> Chapter 2 examines the environmental issues embedded in BRI project, to be more specific: testify which of these three hypothesis (Pollution Havens Hypothesis, Pollution Halo Hypothesis, Environmental Kuznets Curve) is in accordance with the current development condition of BRI counties