Pursuing Environmental and Social Objectives through Trade Agreements

Using a data set covering more than 120 countries spanning several decades, this paper employs a synthetic difference in difference estimator to study whether non-trade provisions on labor standards, environmental protection and civil and human rights in trade agreements yield improvements in corresponding indicators. The paper distinguishes between binding (enforceable) and non-binding provisions and investigates linkages between non-trade provisions and official development assistance. The analysis finds no evidence that provisions related labour or civil rights improved the associated outcome indicators, while evidence on environmental outcomes is mixed. Official development assistance is significantly greater with non-binding environmental and civil rights provisions, but not with labor standards.

Pursuing Environmental and Social Objectives through Trade Agreements