Saturday, 31 March 2012: 5:05 PM
There has been an intense debate upon the consequences of using eco labels requirements in the international trade transactions among countries. For some, eco labels are sound environmental policy as they would allow reduction of negative production externalities and more fair competition among countries in the international trade arena. For others, eco labels are nothing more than disguised protectionisms aiming to reduce competiveness of emerging country competitiveness. Therefore, it is relevant to analyze economic consequences for an emerging economy of eco label requirements by import (mainly developed) countries. This paper presents results of an investigation into the natural resource intensity of Brazilian export products and into the consequences for Brazilian export competitiveness if eco labels requirements become generalized. We measure a revealed competitive advantage (RCA) indicator based upon technical coefficient matrix for a twenty year period (1991 to 2010). Our results indicate that, in spite of a high dependence of exports from natural resource intensive products, Brazilian exports would not be significantly affect by the generalization of eco labels requirements in the international trade transactions.