Tracing CO2 Emissions in Global Value Chains

This paper integrates two lines of research: trade in global value chains and embodied emissions into a unified conceptual framework. This allows both value-added and emissions to be systematically traced at the country, sector, and bilateral levels through various production network routes. By combining value-added and emissions accounting in a consistent way, the potential environmental cost (emission with per unit of value-added created) along Global Value Chains can be estimated. Based on this unified accounting method, we trace CO2 emission in global production and trade network among 41 economies in 35 sectors from 1995 to 2009 based on the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) database and show how they help us to better understand the impact of cross-country production sharing on the environment