The Impact of Offshoring and Import Competition on Firm-Level Carbon Emissions

Jonathan Leisner (), Jakob R. Munch (), August Twile Nielsen () and Georg Schaur
Additional contact information
Jonathan Leisner: University of Copenhagen
Jakob R. Munch: University of Copenhagen
August Twile Nielsen: University of Copenhagen

No 16556, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use Danish firm-level data to examine the causal link between carbon emissions, offshoring, and import competition. Offshoring reduces firms' emission intensity but increases their production. Import competition reduces firms' production without affecting their emission intensity. For Denmark, these effects imply that observed offshoring trends reduced the overall manufacturing emission intensity while import competition did not. However, despite the emission reducing effects in local manufacturing, offshoring did not affect global emissions. Furthermore, import competition substantially increased global emissions. Therefore, based on offshoring and Chinese import competition, our results suggest that international trade may be bad for the global environment.

Keywords: carbon emissions; offshoring; import competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F18 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2023-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-int and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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