Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy Study Finds Mixed Impact of Trade on the Environment

The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy has released a first-of-its-kind empirical study on the relationships between trade and the environment. The new report—called “Exploring Trade and the Environment: An Empirical Examination of Trade Openness and National Environmental Performance”—finds evidence that trade openness can have both positive and negative associations with environmental quality. The report’s unique data-driven approach grows out of its use of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a country-level global ranking released every two years by researchers at Yale’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Columbia University.