Does offshoring contribute to reducing domestic air emissions? Evidence from Belgian manufacturing

Bernhard Michel

Ecological Economics, 2013, vol. 95, issue C, 73-82

Abstract: Since the mid-90s, production-related air emissions in Belgian manufacturing have fallen substantially and it can be shown that the pace of the fall has been fastest for domestic intermediates. It is widely debated whether offshoring has played a role in this fall by replacing domestic intermediates by imported intermediates. This paper develops a decomposition analysis to measure the contribution of offshoring – the share of imported intermediates in total intermediates – to the fall in air emissions for domestic intermediates. Based on the results from this decomposition analysis, it was possible to calculate that 17% of the fall in greenhouse gas emissions, 6% of the fall in acidifying emissions and 7% of the fall in tropospheric precursor emissions in Belgian manufacturing between 1995 and 2007 can be attributed to offshoring.

Keywords: Trade in intermediates; Offshoring; Air emissions; Decomposition analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:95:y:2013:i:c:p:73-82

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.08.005

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