The Energy and Pollution Intensity of Investment in the Cement Industry

东亚新兴的工业化经济表明，经济的迅速增长和融入全球经济的同时，贫穷发生率也会大幅下降，收入不平等程度也会降低。不幸的是，这些经济体共享的增长“奇迹”是在城市环境严重恶化的情况下实现的。由于这些发展和环境成果是在贸易和投资日益开放的背景下产生的，因此人们担心，贸易和投资的开放会造成污染天堂，或使“脏”工业从环境法规严格的国家转移到法规薄弱的国家。可预见的结果是更多的贸易和投资（更多的全球化）和更脏的环境。迄今为止，对污染避风港假说的实证支持有限。此外，有一些证据表明，对贸易和投资的开放可以增加获得较新的、污染较少的先进工厂和设备的机会，因为这些工厂和设备较新，而且是从发达国家进口的。这为显著减少污染的发展提供了重要机会。虽然以前的研究在理论上模拟了这两种结果，但对污染天堂的实证研究很少。此外，这种实证研究大多基于高度汇总的数据，其分析单位是国家，而不是做出最重要环境决策的公司或工厂。本研究项目将实证分析全球化和环境法规对中国、马来西亚和泰国一个特别肮脏、快速增长的出口导向型行业——水泥行业——制造工厂环境绩效的影响。研究方法将包括对从这些国家约125个大中型水泥厂收集的调查数据进行统计分析。多元回归分析将用于解决三个关键问题：对贸易和外国投资的日益开放在多大程度上与采用能源、材料和污染较少的技术和生产做法有关？开放对环境绩效的影响是否取决于这些工厂所面临的监管执法力度和社会压力？开放的影响是否仅限于改善经济和环境绩效的技术和生产过程的变化？这些问题的答案对国际社会和发展中国家都很重要。如果对贸易和投资的开放有助于改善工厂一级的环境绩效，国际社会就可以较少关注贸易和投资协定中的污染避风港影响。另一方面，如果开放有助于污染避风港效应，那么环境考虑可能必须成为国际贸易和投资协定的一部分。此外，如果对贸易和投资的开放有助于改善环境绩效，发展中国家的政府将有更多的政策选择，以确保快速的城市工业增长减少能源、材料和污染密集型。它还将提供机会，在保持高增长率的同时改善环境质量。但是，如果污染避风港效应显著，这就意味着发展中国家的政府必须加倍努力，加强环境法规的严格程度。它还表明，增长、全球化和环境之间可能存在重大权衡。

The newly industrializing economies of East Asia have demonstrated that rapid economic growth and integration into the global economy can occur with substantial declines in the incidence of poverty and low inequality in incomes. Unfortunately, the shared growth "miracles" experienced by these economies have occurred with substantial deterioration in urban environments. Because these development and environment outcomes occurred in the context of increased openness to trade and investment, they have given rise to concerns that openness to trade and investment contributes to pollution havens or the movement of "dirty" industries from countries with stringent environmental regulations to those with weak regulations. The predictable result is more trade and investment (more globalization) and dirtier environments. To date, there is limited empirical support for the pollution haven hypothesis. Moreover, there is some evidence that openness to trade and investment can increase access to newer leading-edge plants and equipment that are less polluting because they newer and are imported from developed countries. This provides an important opportunity for significantly less-polluting development. While previous research has theoretically modeled both of these outcomes, there has been little empirical research on pollution havens. Moreover, most of this empirical research is based on highly aggregated data where the unit of analysis is the country rather than the firm or plants where the most important environmental decisions are made. This research project will empirically analyzing the impacts of globalization and environmental regulations on the environmental performance of manufacturing plants in one particularly dirty, rapidly growing, export-oriented industry, the cement industries of China, Malaysia, and Thailand. Research methods will include a statistical analysis of survey data collected from about 125 large and medium sized cement plants in these countries. Multiple regression analysis will be used to address three key questions: To what extent is increasing openness to trade and foreign investment associated with the adoption of technologies and production practices that are less energy, materials and pollution intensive? Are the impacts of openness on environmental performance contingent on the strength of regulatory enforcement and community pressure faced by these plants? Are the impacts of openness limited to changes in technology and production processes that improve both economic and environmental performance?Answers to these questions are important to both the international community and developing countries. If openness to trade and investment contributes to improved plant level environmental performance, the international community can be less concerned about pollution haven affects in trade and investment agreements. If, on the other hand, openness contributes to pollution haven effects, environmental considerations may have to become part of international trade and investment agreements. Moreover, if openness to trade and investment contributes to improved environmental performance, governments in developing countries would have additional policy options for insuring that rapid urban-industrial growth is less energy, materials, and pollution intensive. It would also provide opportunities to sustain high growth rates while improving ambient environmental quality. But if pollution haven effects are significant, this would suggest that governments in developing countries must redouble their efforts to increase the stringency of environmental regulations. It also suggests that there may be significant tradeoffs between growth, globalization, and the environment.