How does ICT trade shape environmental impacts across the north-south regions? Intra-regional and Inter-regional perspective from dynamic CGE model

In today's modern economy, the source of many economic and environmental effects is due to the ICT goods trade. But the extent and type of effects on trade partners can depend on level of regional development. In this research, we evaluate the economic, environmental as well as energy intensity implications of ICT products trade across the developing (south) and developed (north) countries. To achieve this objective, we apply a dynamic computable general equilibrium model in the form of south-south, north-north and south-north trade. The results show that by increasing the ICT imports, carbon emissions, energy and carbon intensity will rise. If the ICT flow is from south to south and south to north, the intensity of the mentioned indicators will be more intense rather than north to other regions case. Intra-regional imports (north-north and south-south) increase ICT and GDP production within the regions, which leads to a positive scale effect. An increment in inter-regional imports (north-south) will lead to a reduction in ICT and GDP production in the ICT-importer region. In addition, the increase in intra-regional imports leads to composition effect to be negative and the improvement of inter-regional imports leads to a positive composition effect. Thus, south-south and north-north trade increases the share of pollution-intensive sectors. The study recommends trade of ICT products, which are environment and clean energy friendly, for both the regions.