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

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  • Michel, Bernhard

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.

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  • Michel, Bernhard, 2013. "Does offshoring contribute to reducing domestic air emissions? Evidence from Belgian manufacturing," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 73-82.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:95:y:2013:i:c:p:73-82
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.08.005
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    3. Wang, H. & Ang, B.W. & Su, Bin, 2017. "Multiplicative structural decomposition analysis of energy and emission intensities: Some methodological issues," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 47-63.
    4. Hongyun Han & Shu Wu, 2018. "Structural Change and Its Impact on the Energy Intensity of Agricultural Sector in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-23, December.
    5. Kjartan Steen-Olsen & Anne Owen & John Barrett & Dabo Guan & Edgar G. Hertwich & Manfred Lenzen & Thomas Wiedmann, 2016. "Accounting for value added embodied in trade and consumption: an intercomparison of global multiregional input--output databases," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 78-94, March.
    6. Takeshi Iida & Arijit Mukherjee, 2020. "Make and buy in a polluting industry," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(6), pages 1852-1874, December.
    7. Wang, Zhenguo & Su, Bin & Xie, Rui & Long, Haiyu, 2020. "China’s aggregate embodied CO2 emission intensity from 2007 to 2012: A multi-region multiplicative structural decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W. & Li, Yingzhu, 2019. "Structural path and decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy and emission intensities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 345-360.
    9. Wei Zhen & Quande Qin & Lei Jiang, 2022. "Heterogeneous Domestic Intermediate Input-Related Carbon Emissions in China’s Exports," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(3), pages 453-479, March.
    10. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W., 2017. "Multiplicative structural decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy and emission intensities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 137-147.
    11. Inma Martínez-Zarzoso & Shampa Roy-Mukherjee & Finn-Ole Semrau & Anca M. Voicu, 2020. "Pollution Reduction by Rationalization in Indian Firms," Working Papers 2020.01, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    12. Rutger Hoekstra & Bernhard Michel & Sangwon Suh, 2016. "The emission cost of international sourcing: using structural decomposition analysis to calculate the contribution of international sourcing to CO 2 -emission growth," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 151-167, June.
    13. Matthew A. COLE & Robert R.J. ELLIOTT & OKUBO Toshihiro & Liyun ZHANG, 2017. "The Pollution Outsourcing Hypothesis: An empirical test for Japan," Discussion papers 17096, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

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