Polluting Politicians? Import Shocks and Environmental Outcomes

• In Event: Unpacking the International Political Economy of Climate Change

Abstract

Little existing work addresses the link between trade liberalization, the driving force behind international economic integration, and environmental outcomes and preferences. While the effect of “trade shocks” on economic outcomes and political preferences has been well documented, their potential to impact the local environment and environmental attitudes has not been explored despite the significance of such events to local industries and politics. Do trade shocks effect the environment? If so, why? And do these adverse economic shocks bear influence on environmental attitudes? By exploiting China's accession to the WTO in 2001, and the marked increase in imports to the United States associated with it, I attempt to shed light on pathways from trade to emissions and environmental policy. I find that Commuting Zones (CZs) most exposed to import competition exhibit a substantial increase in their propensity to pollute, conditional on Republican political control. I further show that imports lead to an increase in voting for environmental legislation at the national level for jurisdictions with Democratic representation, an outcome we ascribe to the distributional consequences of import exposure, and the resultant changing balance of political influence.

Authors

• Aleksandra Conevska, Harvard University

• Sean Nossek, Yale University