The effects of border-crossing frequencies associated with carbon footprints on border carbon adjustments

Zengkai Zhang, Kunfu Zhu and Geoffrey Hewings

Energy Economics, 2017, vol. 65, issue C, 105-114

Abstract: The fragmentation of production across national boundaries has become an important feature of the world economy. This present paper adopts the viewpoint that not only the size and composition of carbon footprints are relevant but also the border-crossing frequency associated with these carbon footprints, which is defined as the number of borders a product crosses in a supply chain; this process will affect the spatial accounting of the carbon emissions produced to support the economic activity. The calculation of border-crossing frequencies of carbon footprint is accomplished by decomposing the Leontief inverse matrix derived from the world input–output database. We find that the aggregated average border crossing frequencies of carbon footprints show an increasing tendency, which is influenced by the economic crisis obviously. The policy application focuses on the United States, which we assume to levy carbon tariffs on foreign emissions embodied in imports. We find that the indirect carbon tariff on emissions embodied in international trade take a significant share. The border carbon adjustments are mainly targeted at emissions generated in China, which also pays the greatest share of the tariff burden. The implication of carbon tariffs faces the problem of multiple taxation.

Keywords: Carbon footprint; Border-crossing frequency; Border carbon adjustment; Multiple taxation; Input–output analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F18 H23 Q56 Q58 R15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014098831730124X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:eneeco:v:65:y:2017:i:c:p:105-114

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2017.04.017

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().