Handbook of Environmental and Sustainable Finance

Chapter 9

Trade Openness and CO₂ Emission

Evidence from a SIDS

Raja Vinesh Sannassee,  and Boopen Seetanah     Department of Finance & Accounting, Faculty of Law & Management, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius

Abstract

This chapter empirically analyzes the impact of trade on the environment for the case of the Small Island Developing State of Mauritius over the period 1976–2013. Given the time series properties of the data to account for possibility of dynamism, an autoregressive distributed lag model is used to model the determinant of CO₂ emission with a particular focus on trade openness. Analysis of the results shows that trade has contributed positively and significantly to the amount of CO₂ in the country in both the long run and short ...