A structuralist critique of ecologically unequal exchange: capital, technological, and financial dependence

Luca Tausch ()
Additional contact information
Luca Tausch: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, AFD - Agence française de développement

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: The article critically extends the theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) through the macroeconomic perspective of Latin American Structuralism, placing productive, technological, and financial dependence at the core of the center–periphery relation. I develop a global environmentally-extended and capital-augmented multi-regional input-output (EECAMRIO) model for the period 2000–2020, assessing trade in materials, labor, and land, as well as trade in capital goods, low-carbon technologies, and foreign direct investment flows, as well as sectoral investment and resource requirements. The results suggest that while materials, labor, and land flow from the periphery to the center, capital goods, low-carbon technologies, and financial flows circulate exclusively within the center, excluding the periphery from global trade networks. The sectoral analyses reveals that EUE is driven by the penetration of foreign investment into peripheral production structures, as peripheral economies import capital goods primarily to export resource-intensive commodities, while the center (and China) import capital goods to export technology- and capital-intensive goods. Building on these results, the article advances a structuralist interpretation of EUE based on the relation between capital imports and resource exports. EUE ceases to be a primary cause of underdevelopment, but the result of the historically-determined asymmetric integration of peripheral economies into the world capitalist system. The results of this study not only provide important insights for "Ecological Structuralism", but also position EUE within dynamics of the ecological transition.

Keywords: Latin American Structuralism; ecologically unequal exchange; capital goods; productive and financial dependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05744244v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05744244v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05744244

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().