The Market Ticker
Rss Icon RSS available
Fact: There is no immunity or protection against The Law of Scoreboards.
Did you know: What the media does NOT want you to read is at https://market-ticker.org/nad.
You are not signed on; if you are a visitor please register for a free account!
The Market Ticker Read Message in The Market Ticker ®
Top Forum Top Login FAQ Register Clear Cookie Logout
Page 3 of 26  First123456789Last
 In Defense Of Wage And Environmental Parity Tariffs
Jake3463 773 posts, incept 2010-03-06

Larry Summers came up with this idea in 1991 while at the World Bank as their Chief Economist.

If there is one human being in the world, that all the citizens of the world should demand be hung, Larry is at the top of the list.

Text of the Summers memo:

Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate[sic] cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate[sic] cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 3 of 26  First123456789Last