The Impact of Trade on Carbon Emissions and Employment from the Perspective of Global Value Chains—A Case Study of Chinese–Japanese–Korean Trade

Wenzheng Liu, Yadong Ning (), Shukuan Bai and Boya Zhang
Additional contact information
Wenzheng Liu: Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, High-Tech Pack, Dalian 116024, China
Yadong Ning: Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, High-Tech Pack, Dalian 116024, China
Shukuan Bai: Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, High-Tech Pack, Dalian 116024, China
Boya Zhang: Key Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization and Energy Conservation of Ministry of Education, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, High-Tech Pack, Dalian 116024, China

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-23

Abstract: While international trade drives countries’ economic growth and promotes employment, it also has some environmental impact. To investigate the impact of trade on carbon emissions and employment, this study performs a detailed decomposition and measurement of embodied carbon emissions and employment in value-added trade between China, Japan, and Korea from 2007–2019. The current study established that, while China’s trade with Japan and Korea created many domestic jobs, it also resulted in significant domestic carbon emissions. While Japan and Korea’s trade with China reduced carbon emissions, employment in their own countries was reduced and replaced by employment in China. At the value chain route level, trade among the three countries through each value chain route either achieves employment promotion at the cost of increased carbon emissions or promotes domestic emissions reduction at the cost of employment loss. However, it is worth noting that, when trade between Japan and Korea was conducted through simple GVCs (route 2), it not only helped reduce Japan’s carbon emissions, but also effectively promoted employment. This is the ideal trade route. The results of this study can provide useful reference information for developing countries such as China, to achieve sustainable economic growth, carbon emission reduction, and employment promotion in the context of trade globalization.

Keywords: carbon emissions; international trade; employment; GVCs; input–output models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/5/2378/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/5/2378/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:5:p:2378-:d:1085172

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().