Structural path analysis of India's carbon emissions using input-output and social accounting matrix frameworks

Abstract

While input-output (IO) tables have been widely employed to study energy and environmental issues, Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) which further considers the interactions of the production system, primary factors, households and social institutions in the economy is rarely seen in this field. This paper thus compares the transmission dynamics under an IO framework and a SAM framework with the help of structural path analysis (SPA) technique, which decomposes the IO and SAM analysis results by extracting the interconnections in the economic system. A case study is performed to investigate India's carbon emissions based on its latest publicly available IO and SAM tables. As the fourth largest emitter in the world, India's large population base, fast population growth and huge unmet demand imply a surge of carbon emissions following future economic development. There have been a few studies on India's energy and emission issues using IO tables, but more research from different perspectives is still needed to better support policy making. This is the first study on India's carbon emissions under a SAM framework and using SPA techniques, and also the first study that extends the use of SPA by transmission path to the energy and environmental literature.