The US Economy as a Network: A Comparison across Economic and Environmental Metrics

Jason Hawkins () and Sagun Karki
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Jason Hawkins: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
Sagun Karki: School of Computing, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: Environmental-economic analysis is an evolving field that seeks to situate the human economy within environmental systems through its consumption of environmental resources and cycling of resources and waste products back into the environment. Environmental accounting has seen increased focus in recent years as national and regional governments look to better track environmental flows to aid in policy development and evaluation. This study outlines a conceptual environmental-economic framework founded on network science principles. An empirical study operationalizes portions of the framework and highlights the need for further research in this area to develop new data sources and analytic methods. We demonstrate a spatial mismatch between the location of water-intensive industries and the natural location of water resources (i.e., lakes, rivers, and precipitation), which climate change is likely to exacerbate. We use eigenvector centrality to measure differences in the US economy according to economic trade flow and five associated environmental flow accounts (land use, water consumption, energy use, mineral metal use, and greenhouse gas production). Population normalization helps to identify low-population counties that play a central role in the environmental-economic system as a function of their natural resources.

Keywords: network science; input-output analysis; multi-layer networks; environmental-economic interdependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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