International impact of national environmental policies: the case of paper recycling in the United States

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential effect of environmental policies in the United States on the international competitiveness of other countries. To this end, the global forest products model (GFPM) was applied to project the effects of increasing wastepaper recycling in the United States on the international forest sector. The production, imports, exports, and prices of forest products in different countries were predicted from 1998 to 2010, with two scenarios. One assumed continuation of past trends, while the other assumed that wastepaper recovery and utilisation rates in the United States would be about 10% higher by 2010. With this increased recycling the world prices of paper would decrease and demand would increase. As a result, wood pulp production would decrease less than the increase in recycled paper. The United States and other major consumer countries would register total welfare gains, while Canada and the main European producers would lose.