ETD

• comparative advantage
• environment
• free trade agreements
• FTA
• international agreement
• TTIP

Free Trade Agreements have been at the centre of an inflamed debate, with economic benefits being questioned and rising complaints about fairness of the playing field for the sides involved. Environmental drawbacks are often asymmetrically divided among the parties, resulting in problematics of environmental dumping. At the eve of the new Transatlantic Trade and Partnership Agreement, this work proposes to analyse the possible drawbacks due to environmental externalities, investigating how FTAs may be the tool through which economic agents make counterproductive decisions. As the burden of externalities may be overlooked, the well-being of the consumers from the partner countries can turn out to be lowered from a policy involuntarily incentivising them. In order to assess what are the crucial elements to take into account, a Comparative Advantage model is built to simulate the possible outcomes of an FTA.