Trade, the environment, and natural resources.

• Position: The National Bureau of Economic Research's Conference on 'Trade, the Environment, and Natural Resources

The NBER Universities-Research Conference on "Trade, the Environment, and Natural Resources,' organized by James A. Brander of NBER and University of British Columbia, took place on May 8-9 in Cambridge. The following papers were discussed:

William K. Jaeger, Williams College, "A Theoretical Basis for the Environmental Inverted-U Curve and Implications for International Trade"

Discussant: Clive Chapple, Queen's University

Werner Antweiler, Brian Copeland, and M. Scott Taylor, University of British Columbia, "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?"

Discussant: Michael Rauscher, University of Rostock

Josh Ederington, University of Wisconsin, "International Coordination of Trade and Domestic Policies"

Discussant: Robert Driskill, Vanderbilt University

John Beghin, North Carolina State University; Brad Bowland, University of Minnesota; Sebastian Dessus and Dominque van der Mensbrugghe, OECD; and David Roland-Hoist, Mills College, "The Interface between Growth, Trade, and the Environment in Chile: Evidence from an Economy-wide Model"

Discussant: Eckhard Janeba, Indiana University

Carlo Perroni, University of Warwick, and Randall Wigle, Wilfrid Laurier University, "International Process Standards and North-South Trade"

Discussant: K. C. Fung, University of California, Santa Barbara

Jinhua Zhao, Iowa State University; Larry Karp, University of California, Berkeley; and Sandeep Sacheti, American Express, "Common Ground between Free-traders and Environmentalists"

Discussant: Eduardo Vergara, Princeton University

John M. Hartwick, Queen's University; and Ngo Van Long, McGill University, "Deforestation and Development in a Small Open Economy"

Discussant: Georges Tanguay, McGill University

Arik Levinson, NBER and University of Wisconsin, "NIMBY Taxes Matter: State Taxes and Interstate Hazardous Waste Shipments" (NBER Working Paper No. 6314)

Discussant: Kathleen Segerson, University of Connecticut

Jaeger describes an "inverted-U" pattern, by which environmental damage will first rise and then fall with rising incomes. He then develops a simple model in which the efficient path of environmental degradation produces an inverted-U shape. In most natural environments, two distinct types of services, one rival and one nonrival, create a fundamental asymmetry in the aggregation of values. Typically, a nonrival or public good, such as ambient air quality or other amenities, competes with and is traded off against a private or rival good, such as waste...