The physical dimension of international trade is attaining increased importance. This article describes a method to calculate complete physical trade flows for all countries which report their trade to the UN. The method is based on the UN Comtrade database and it was used to calculate...

Global trade is increasingly being challenged by observations of growing burden shifting, in particular of environmental problems. This paper presents the first worldwide calculations of shifted burden based on material flow indicators, in particular direct and indirect physical trade balances....