Abstract
To realize optimal management of trans-boundary renewable resources is very hard because not only is international cooperation indispensable, but several economic aspects should also be considered. In the familiar case of Japan and China, for example, East China Sea is a hot spot between the two countries. Not only is a natural gas field, which sometimes causes territorial conflicts, located just close to the border but the area is also quite rich in marine resources. As fishes are a trans-boundary renewable resource, international cooperation is required for its management. However, this is difficult to establish, and overfishing is common. For an optimal resource management policy between Japan and China, we need to consider two important aspects that have been ignored in previous studies. The first is environmental pollution caused by the smokestack manufacturing industry, which generates negative externalities on the stock of renewable resources. We focus on environmental pollution in the East China Sea, which comes mainly from China because of relatively poor pollution abatement technologies. Environmental pollution from industrial production has become one most serious problems of the world, which is difficult to solve because underdeveloped countries, without sufficient skills and funding, usually cannot control pollution well. Moreover, their governments often give priority to economic growth over protection of the environment. The second aspect is international factor mobility. Not only international trade strategies but also FDI and migration policies should be considered important for optimal economic management. Migration from China to Japan, which is the focus of this study, is not very large now, but the potential wage gap may cause a flood of labor mobility in the near future.
This paper was originally published by the International Economy as an article in its Vol. 14 (2014) issue.
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- 1.
The pioneering study by Copeland and Taylor (1999) extended David Ricardo’s relative advantage model to examine the natural recovery of environmental resources and analyze the economic welfare effects of international specialization and trade. Suga (2001) introduced differences between two countries’ pollution rates and permitted a realistic possibility of trans-boundary pollution. Ito and Tawada (2003) studied the effects of the transfer of pollution abatement technology from a developed to an underdeveloped country. Several studies have focused on the environmental industry. Chua (2003) examined emission tax effects on the trade pattern with a three-sector model in which one sector is the nontradable pollution abatement service industry. Sugiyama (2003) also studied the effects of environmental policies with a two-sector model in which one sector produces pollution abatement equipment. Abe and Sugiyama (2010) analyzed the structure of comparative advantage determined by international differences in environmental policies with a model incorporating pollution abatement equipment, and they examined the effects of an environmental policy in an open economy.
- 2.
- 3.
We need to confirm that private incentive of each worker essentially causes international migration from the country with lower wage. Socially, under certain conditions shown in the text, international labor mobility may cause negative effects on the economy of both the source and host countries, but this itself cannot stop migration in case that migrants gain.
- 4.
For example, some kind of fish cannot freeze well without losing their qualities.
- 5.
See Wong (1995), for example.
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Kondoh, K. (2017). Renewable Resources, Environmental Pollution, and International Migration. In: The Economics of International Immigration. New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 27. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0092-8_11
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