Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:53:40am WEST
External resources will be made available 30 min before a session starts. You may have to reload the page to access the resources.
|
Daily Overview |
| Session | |
|
Trade, Waste and Pollution Location: B136 Session Chair: Xiaoou (Daisy) Zhan, University of Wisconsin-Madison | |
    | |
Waste Material Imports and the Production-Pollution Tradeoff: Evidence and Policy University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States of America We examine how waste material imports affect firm-level pollution and productivity in China during 2000–2013. Using a shift-share instrumental variable strategy exploiting tariff differentials between virgin and waste materials (plastic, paper, metal), we find that a one percentage point increase in waste import share raises pollution intensity, defined as emissions per unit of real output, by 1.45% for SO2, 1.16% for NOx, and 0.75% for soot, while simultaneously increasing real output per employee by 2.12%. Motivated by these findings, we then develop a general equilibrium model incorporating emission and disposal externalities, demonstrating that optimal policy requires both environmental taxes and waste tariffs: environmental taxes reduce both aggregate emissions and waste disposal, while tariffs shift sourcing from imported to domestic waste, reducing disposal externalities while preserving local production. The counterfactual analysis shows that aggregate welfare would increase by approximately 0.06% if the tariff on waste paper were adjusted to its optimal level. | |