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Trade, Technique And Composition Effects: What Is Behind The Fall In World-Wide So2 Emissions 1990-2000?, Jean-Marie Grether, Nicole Andréa Mathys, Jaime De Melo

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

Combining unique data bases on emissions with sectoral output and employment data, we study the sources of the fall in world-wide SO2 emissions and estimate the impact of trade on emissions. Contrarily to concerns raised by environmentalists, an emission-decomposition exercise shows that scale effects are dominated by technique effects working towards a reduction in emissions. A second exercise comparing the actual trade situation with an autarky benchmark estimates that trade, by allowing clean countries to become net importers of emissions, leads to a 10% increase in world emissions with respect to autarky in 1990, a figure that shrinks to 3.5% …