Empirical study on the scale effect of environmental impact caused by trading liberalization

Environmental protection is a necessary requirement for sustainable development of foreign trade. Based on the data of export, GDP per capita and industrial wastewater emissions from 1984 to 2009 of Shandong province, this paper studied the direct and indirect scale effects of environment impact caused by trading liberalization respectively, and their changing trends using two regression models. Results showed: export value and GDP per capita of Shandong have certain responsibilities for environmental pollution. Both the direct and indirect scale effects are negative and both the negative effects have increasing trends. At last, this paper put forward relevant policy suggestions.