Abstract
International and inter-regional trade in China has been promoted, the economic and environmental impacts of which are significant in regional development. In this paper, we analyzed the evolution of inter-regional spillover of carbon emissions and employment in China from 2007 to 2012 with structural decomposition method and multi-regional input-output tables. The index of carbon emission per employee (ICE) is designed and compared to indicate positive or negative spillover effects. We find that carbon emissions grow much more rapidly in interior regions than in coastal regions, due to spillover effects and own influences. Spillover effects rarely reduce the ICE of destination regions, but the own influences can decrease it in most regions. Although spillover may contribute to economic development in most regions, it is hardly a driver of efficiency improvement in destination regions. Based on these empirical findings, we put forward specific suggestions to improve the positive spillover effects on different kinds of regions.
Highlights
As the largest developing country in the world, China is a country with large spatial disparities, in climate, geography and resource endowment and in economic development, industrial structure and household consumption
Among the bilateral spillover effects on the index of carbon emission per employee, we mainly focus on the results of positive spillover effects
The final demand scale change was the dominant factor of carbon emissions and employment growth, while the intensity change was the dominant factor of carbon emissions and employment amount reduction
Summary
As the largest developing country in the world, China is a country with large spatial disparities, in climate, geography and resource endowment and in economic development, industrial structure and household consumption. There is a growing need to explore the inter-regional cooperation and interactions because of their profound effects on regional economic development and carbon emissions. It is worth noting that spillover may have positive and negative effects on regions. Growth of value added and employment caused by trade can be regarded as positive spillover effects. The effects on environment may be negative in some regions, such as carbon emissions growth and environmental degradation. Combination and compare of the two sides will shed light on the inter-regional interactions and contribute to regional emission control. We attempted to investigate the positive and negative spillover effects of inter-regional trade evolution on individual regions of China, among which employment and carbon emission were selected as representative indices
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