Eco-certification standards are increasingly used by industrial countries to restrict imports of foreign goods produced using unsustainable practices. Import restrictions on eco-certified goods limit the trade of goods to the home country, but also serve to segment global demand into separate regions for conventional goods and certified goods, altering market structure and equilibrium prices in a manner that can work against sustainability goals. In this paper, we examine the effect of recent import restrictions in the US, EU, Canada, and Japan that require tropical timber products produced in Central Africa to be eco-certified. Using panel data of timber production in Cameroon from 2003 to 2009, we show that conventional timber producers substantially increase harvest rates in response to eco-certification standards. Our findings suggest that import restrictions on tropical timber products shifted production to forests with higher extraction costs, exacerbating economic inefficiency and potentially raising marginal damages from timber extraction.

工业国家越来越多地使用生态认证标准来限制使用不可持续做法生产的外国商品的进口。对生态认证商品的进口限制限制了商品向母国的贸易，但也有助于将全球需求分为常规商品和认证商品的不同区域，从而以不利于可持续发展目标的方式改变市场结构和均衡价格。在本文中，我们研究了最近在美国，欧盟，加拿大和日本实施的进口限制对要求中非生产的热带木材产品进行生态认证的影响。使用2003年至2009年喀麦隆木材产量的面板数据，我们显示，常规木材生产商根据生态认证标准大幅提高了采伐率。