An Estimation of the Pollution Content of Trade in Korea

This paper involves the argument of whether environmental control measures have a significant effect on the pattern of trade. We estimate pollution loadings of Korean trade and relative impact indices of the Korean industries to analyze how vulnerable Korean competitiveness in the international market is to increased environmental costs. The results show that in Korea pollution control charges are approximately trade-neutral in the aggregate, while they have substantial. effects on the pattern of trade at the industry level. These are consistent with other studies in the sense that pollution controls do affect the comparative advantage in each country.