The Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base: Version 12

In this paper, we develop an approach towards incorporation of nutritional accounts for the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base. We rely on the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) food balance sheets data and nutritive indicators to estimate nutritional content of primary commodities and derived commodities represented in primary equivalent within the food balance sheets. Calories, fats, proteins and carbohydrates are estimated and reported. We further identify use categories that account for food, feed, seed, losses and other uses. In terms of food supply, we identify GTAP Data Base primary commodity sectors, food processing sectors and service sectors that supply food. To redistribute nutritional data according to GTAP Data Base sectors, we calculate Leontief inverses, operating only over those sectors (and uses) that supply food. Trade in both primary and processed commodities is taken into account. The approach is applied to all four GTAP 10 Data Base reference years and can be replicated in a dynamic modelling framework for each simulated year (time step).

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are ubiquitous in energy and environmental economic research. Recent technological advancements in electricity fuels, generation technologies, and environmental policies which target specific generation technologies (e.g. emission regulations) have motivated detailed CGE modeling of the electricity sector. Modeling these issues requires distinct electricity generating technologies in a CGE database. Researchers using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base have disaggregated the electricity sector into generating technologies independently using largely disparate, incomparable methodologies. This paper presents the methodology used to create the GTAP-Power Data Base, an electricity-detailed extension of the GTAP 9 Data Base with the following disaggregated electricity sectors: transmission and distribution, nuclear, coal, gas, hydroelectric, wind, oil, solar, and other. Gas, oil, and hydroelectric are further differentiated as base and peak load. The "bottom-up" data are electricity generation and levelized input costs for each technology and region. The levelized input costs for each technology are estimated to be as close as possible to the original data, but consistent with the original GTAP 9 Data Base. Major limitations in the initial version of the GTAP-Power Data Base are the lack of regional coverage in input cost data and disparity between available data and the total values for the electricity aggregate. All of the GTAP 9 Data Base is included in the GTAP-Power Data Base.

This paper provides an overview of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base and its latest release, version 9. The GTAP Data Base has been used in thousands of economy-wide analyses over the past twenty-five years. While initially focused on supporting trade policy analysis, the addition of satellite accounts pertaining to greenhouse gas emissions and land use has resulted in a surge of applications relating to climate change as well as other environmental issues. The Data Base comprises an exhaustive set of accounts measuring the value of annual flows of goods and services with regional and sectoral detail for the entire world economy. These flows include bilateral trade, transport, and protection matrices that link individual country/regional economic datasets. Version 9 disaggregates 140 regions, 57 sectors, 8 factors of production, for 3 base years (2004, 2007 and 2011). The great success enjoyed by this Data Base stems from the collaboration efforts by many parties interested in improving the quality of economic analysis of global policy issues related to trade, economic development, energy and the environment.

Historically fossil-fuel consumption subsidies have been one of the most widely used energy and public policy interventions. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2014 they amounted to $493 billion worldwide, which is equivalent to 0.6% of global GDP. Their contribution is even more significant for most energy exporting countries, in many cases exceeding 5-15% of national GDP. However, despite their large magnitude, fossil-fuel consumption subsidies are not explicitly represented in most global economic databases and models, including the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base, as they are generally not captured by the input-output framework. In this paper, we present methods to integrate pre-tax fossil-fuel consumption subsidies to the GTAP Data Base and produce a version of the GTAP 9.2 Data Base that includes these subsidies. The proposed approach includes updates of energy commodity market prices and corresponding tax rates, within the GTAP Data Base build process. Including fossil-fuel consumption subsidies in the GTAP Data Base provides several benefits for energy and environmental policy simulations, including availability of an additional policy instrument and more consistent representation of energy prices.

We estimate international transportation margin shares by mode of transport for the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base. For each available origin-destination-GTAP sector triplet, we estimate the fractional share of the transport margin attributable to air, water, and other shipping modes. We use published relationships between ad valorem proportional changes in prices due to transportation costs and distances, weight-value ratios and fuel prices. Our final database contains 344,554 observations (origin-destination-sector-mode combinations) with transportation margin modal shares organized by 228 exporter countries, 209 importer countries, 45 traded GTAP sectors and 3 transportation modes. The main contribution of this article is to bring a more comprehensive set of information on trade by transport mode covering around 65% of global trade in 2004 and 55% in 2011. Our estimated shares contrast with those traditionally used in the GTAP Data Base which are extrapolations based solely on the modes of transport used by US exporters. A comparison of our shares with those used in version 9.0 of the GTAP Data Base reveals that the role of water transportation services in international trade is underestimated, while that of air transportation is overestimated. Overall, we find that estimations using the modal shares in version 9.0 of the GTAP Data Base overestimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with international transport. Our new data were used to estimate transport margins by mode in Version 9.1 of the GTAP Data Base, and it is expected that our methods will be used to update future versions of the database.

Introduction The Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model is a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model which has its origins in the SALTER model (Jomini et al. 1991). Since its inception in 1993, GTAP has become widely used and respected by researchers and policy-makers around the world. In this Appendix we introduce some of the key features of the GTAP database and model, applications of which are used in a number of chapters in this book. We then explain how results from the GTAP model can be analysed and we conclude with a summary of some of the main advantages and limitations of global CGE analysis. The GTAP database The GTAP model and database are publicly available and fully documented; these features enhance the credibility of modelling work and facilitate comparability of analysis. The global database is updated approximately every eighteen months, with contributions coming from throughout the GTAP network of international organisations and country experts. Version 3 of the database comprises 37 commodities and 30 countries (McDougall 1997), while Version 4 of the database comprises 50 commodities and 45 regions (McDougall et al. 1998). In both versions, Indonesia is one of the countries specified and there is a relatively heavy disaggregation for agricultural sectors. Table A1 details the countries and regions in recent versions of the GTAP database, while Table A2 shows the commodity breakdown. To aid computation and to highlight the implications for the regions and sectors of particular interest, the GTAP database is generally aggregated to a smaller number of regions and sectors when running simulations and interpreting results.

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models provide valuable insights into economy-wide and aggregate sectoral impacts of trade policies. However, when it comes to the assessment of specific interventions, the level of aggregation in these models is often deemed too coarse to inform negotiations. For example, in the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base, all vegetables, fruits and nuts – over hundred individual commodities – are represented under one sector. Analysis at the tariff line level is typically provided by partial equilibrium (PE) models, which cannot, however, capture economy-wide effects. In this paper, we contribute to the development of the GTAP-HS framework, which comprises disaggregated values of output, trade flows and domestic absorption with supporting model components nested within the standard GTAP GE model. We construct the GTAP-HS database with GTAP vegetables, fruits and nuts sector disaggregated into 79 commodities. We apply this modelling framework to the assessment of the ongoing trade frictions between the United States and its trading partners. We find that there are significant advantages to using this nested approach to trade policy analysis, including possibilities of the trade policies assessment at the tariff line, representation of the commodity-specific substitution and avoidance of the ‘false competition’ critique.

With a wide range of implications for welfare, food security, land use, trade and the environment, nutrition-related policies pose complex questions that should be assessed using an approach that properly accounts for all the involved interactions. Widely used partial equilibrium models fail to properly account for the post-farmgate food value chains. At the same time, most of the available integrated assessment and computable general equilibrium models have some major limitations in terms of the consistent representation of nutritional data flows. In this paper, we address some of the limitations identified in the literature and develop an approach for incorporating nutritional accounts into the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base, tracing quantities of food, calories, fats, proteins and carbohydrates along the value chains. We further showcase how the developed nutritional database can be linked to the standard GTAP model. A sample application is developed in the paper to provide an assessment of the impact of import tariff elimination on nutritional flows.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to quantify and analyze the relative impact of agriculture Trade liberalization and South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) over the global economic welfare. The objectives are to analyze and quantify the potential economic cost and benefits of the prospective trade between India and Pakistan to consumers, producers and government of the two countries by analyzing the potential economic costs and benefits of Pak‐India trade in exporting various consumer goods.Design/methodology/approach – The Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database is the database for the GTAP model of the world economy, which is publicly available. The main data source for this model is “The GTAP 4 Data Base” which is easy to adapt to appropriate sectoral and regional aggregations that allow one to focus on specific policy questions. The regional databases in the model are derived from individual country input‐output (I/O) tables that provide information about the individual regional economie...

Water is an essential input in the production processes of all goods and services. However, most economic models ignore water as an essential factor of production. In contrast with other inputs, economic data do not reflect the role of water in the production processes of goods and services and its final value in the demand side. This makes it difficult to incorporate water in economic models, properly examine its role in economic activities, and study its interaction with other inputs in the production processes. Introducing water into an economy-wide database such as Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base which has been widely used by many economic modelers across the world could help them to extend their research agendas on the role and importance of water in economic activities. As the first step towards this direction we divided the crop sectors of the GTAP-Power Data Base (which extends the GTAP Data Base Version 9 by disaggregating the electricity sector) into irrigated and rainfed categories and explicitly included water for irrigation into the cost structure of irrigated crops by river basin at the Agro Ecological Zone (AEZ) level.

This paper documents changes introduced to version 10 of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Power (GTAP-Power 10) Data Base construction process relative to the GTAP-Power build stream developed in Peters (2016). First, in Peters (2016) output of the electricity and heat generation sector was split into different technologies using electricity generation data only. We use heat and electricity generation volumes to provide a more representative sectoral split and achieve a better concordance with GTAP 10 Data Base sectoral definitions. Second, we introduce data on country and year-specific shares of transmission and distribution costs in electricity price for 80 countries. In the GTAP-Power 9 Data Base this cost share was assumed to be uniform across all countries and regions. Finally, for every reference year, we update the levelized cost of electricity generation. We first compare GTAP-Power 9 Data Base construction results with and without corresponding changes. We then construct the GTAP-Power 10 Data Base and showcase how it can be used to estimate carbon dioxide emissions embodied in final consumption of electricity generated by different technologies.

Food loss and waste undermine the resilience and sustainability of global food systems, jeopardising progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopting healthier and more sustainable diets could help reduce global food loss and waste, but the potential trade-offs on food loss and waste trends and interactions with standalone reduction policies remain largely unexplored. We aimed to investigate the effects of reducing food loss and waste within the context of a global dietary transition by 2050, shedding light on the synergies and trade-offs between two crucial policy areas for the food systems of the future. In this economic modelling study, we linked the economic and technical modelling of food loss and waste by adding consistent tracing of food loss and waste in physical quantities along global (ie, domestic and international) food supply chains within a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework. This framework captures the behavioural responses of economic actors along food and non-food supply chains. We built on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base, incorporating data extensions for energy, nutritional accounts, and food loss and waste flows along stages of global supply chains. We first investigated the impact of halving global food loss and waste through technological developments by 2050, in line with the SDG 12.3 target. We then analysed the impact of transitioning to healthier and more sustainable diets by 2050, promoting a global dietary transition through behavioural changes. We explored this dietary transition both with and without the goal of halving global food loss and waste, highlighting how food loss and waste targets interact with dietary changes on a global scale. Our scenarios were chosen to show how the magnitude, composition, location, and reuse potential of food loss and food waste could evolve under different scenarios compared with business-as-usual dietary developments. Food loss and waste along global supply chains were projected to rise by 52·0% by 2050 under the continuation of historical trends. Diet shifts alone were projected to be insufficient to curb this rise in food loss and waste, with demographic trends and growing incomes driving the total volume of lost and discarded food. Regional spillover effects of healthier diets-whereby low-income countries increase plant-based food production to meet growing demand in high-income countries-exacerbated food loss and waste trends, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and north Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, rapid population growth and increased per-capita gross domestic product drove food loss and waste when dietary changes were implemented (an increase of 132·2% from 2014 to 2050) and when standalone food loss and waste reduction targets were applied (an increase of 61·8% from 2014 to 2050). Globally, dietary shifts were projected to drive food loss and waste for oilseeds and fish, surpassing baseline levels by 2050. Further spillovers emerged in high-income countries where demand for fresh plant-based foods was shown to drive losses at production stages. Global trade was also found to amplify food loss and waste in exporting regions, as increasing exports of plant-based products from sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America to Europe, the USA, and India increased farm-level food loss and waste. Coupling dietary transitions with targeted food loss and waste reduction policies in line with SDG 12.3 successfully controlled spillover effects on a global scale. A combined strategy could reduce global food loss and waste by 63·2%, eliminating commodity-specific and stage-specific spillovers and enhancing the effectiveness of dietary changes. Potential benefits were particularly notable in sub-Saharan Africa where nutritional availability could increase by an average of 365 calories per capita per day by 2050. Policies promoting healthier diets must consider spillover effects on food loss and waste (eg, a potential rise in loss and waste generation when global consumption shifts towards plant-based products). As shifts in production, consumption, and trade alter the magnitude, location, and composition of food loss and waste, monitoring these changes is crucial to establishing the priority areas for food loss and waste reduction or reuse interventions, especially in low-income regions. Although dietary shifts can improve nutrition, new technologies and market-based approaches to reuse discarded food and food waste-whether linked to domestic consumption or trade-could create economic opportunities and environmental benefits. To maximise these benefits, food loss and waste reduction should be central to discussions on dietary transition policies, as spillover effects risk undermining the positive outcomes of a global dietary shift. None.

The Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) benchmark data and parameters are specified for 37 commodities and 24 regions. Due to the size of this data set, an aggregated version of the data base and parameters will be desired for most GTAP simulations. The precise dimensions of each aggregation will depend on the problem at hand. Experienced users tend to favor strategic aggregations that allow them to focus on key sectors and regions of interest. This makes the job of sorting through the simulation results less daunting. For teaching purposes, we usually begin with the three-region, three-commodity (3×3) aggregation referred to in Chapters 2 and 4. Section II introduces you to the GTAP aggregation facility that created this 3×3 data set. We will also examine some of the key value flows, as well as the full parameter file. In section III, local behavior of the 3×3 model will be examined through the use of general equilibrium demand elasticities. This offers a valuable summary of the interaction between theory, data, and parameters in the model.

In the interest of including additional countries from the Caribbean into the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database to support economic analysis on these countries, the Inter-American Development Bank commissioned the inclusion of Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic into version 8.2 (and 9) of the GTAP database. The document describes the process of transforming the original input-out and supply use tables of these four Caribbean countries into the GTAP format. Further details on the GTAP database may be found at www.gtap.org.

According to the Global Burden of Disease study (Cohen et al., 2017), in 2015 ambient air pollutant emissions caused 4.2 million deaths and a loss of 103.1 million disability-adjusted life-years, making it the fifth-ranked global risk factor. In terms of the welfare costs of mortality and illnesses associated with outdoor air pollutant emissions, global estimates for 2015 range between $2.7-3.2 trillion (Coady et al., 2015; OECD, 2016). Still, while greenhouse gas emissions are usually well represented in many global economic databases and models, air pollutant emission accounts in most cases are not included. In particular, this is the case for the widely used Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) Data Base and model. In this paper we describe the methodology used to produce a global air pollutant emissions dataset consistent with the GTAP Data Base version 10A. In addition to the non-land use sources, emissions from land use activities are estimated by land cover type, based on the volume of burned biomass and emission factors. The emissions database can be readily incorporated in GTAP-based computable general equilibrium models, enabling assessments of a wide range of policy questions, including the health co-benefits from climate mitigation policies. We illustrate an application of the air pollutant emissions database by tracking changes in primary PM2.5 emissions embodied in trade between 2004 and 2014.