Foreign Direct Investment and The Pollution Haven Hypothesis: Evidence from Listed Firms

Grégoire Garsous () and Tomasz Kozluk

No 1379, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Business has often been arguing against the introduction of a carbon tax because it would induce a pollution haven effect – reducing the competitiveness of domestic production and shifting both production and emissions to countries where fossil fuels are cheaper. In this paper, we shed light on such claims by estimating the effect of energy prices on one of the possible channels of the pollution haven effect - foreign direct investment (FDI). Using data for listed firms in 23 OECD countries, we find that the effect of higher domestic energy prices on firms’ outward stock of FDI has been significant and positive, but small in magnitude. This effect seems driven by more permanent shocks to energy prices, in particular by those coming from more stringent upstream environmental policies.

Keywords: energy prices; environmental policies; FDI; pollution haven (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 Q41 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-int and nep-res
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1379-en

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