Economic drivers of greenhouse gas-emissions in small open economies: A hierarchical structural decomposition analysis

Croner, Daniel and Koller, Wolfgang and Mahlberg, Bernhard (2018): Economic drivers of greenhouse gas-emissions in small open economies: A hierarchical structural decomposition analysis.

Abstract

The Paris agreement has prescribed strict Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction targets for participating countries. Implementation of climate protection policies is challenging, especially if the economy is export driven. We introduce a hierarchical structural decomposition model in order to investigate the effects of exports, imports, economic structure, consumption patterns, consumption level, outsourcing and insourcing on national GHG emissions. This model is applied to the data of national environmental accounts and to a harmonized and price-deflated series of national input-output tables of Austria for the years 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010. Over the whole time period, the results indicate that the final demand effect was the main driver of GHG emissions, with exports as most important factor. Surprisingly, emission intensity contributed to an increase of GHG emissions during the period 2000-2005 as well, mostly due to increasing emission intensity in the transport sector.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Leontief Model; Emissions Embodied in Exports; Trade Integration; Economic Structure; CO2-Intensity; Competitiveness
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C6 - Mathematical Methods ; Programming Models ; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling > C67 - Input-Output Models; L - Industrial Organization > L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance > L16 - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics: Industrial Structure and Structural Change ; Industrial Price Indices; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q56 - Environment and Development ; Environment and Trade ; Sustainability ; Environmental Accounts and Accounting ; Environmental Equity ; Population Growth

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