This editorial is the introduction to a special issue of Economic Systems Research on the topic of carbon footprint and input-output analysis. It provides a brief historical context of the involvement of input-output analysis with applications in environmental research and makes the link to...

In developing a standardised approach for companies to inventory greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along their value chains, key challenges identified by stakeholders and technical experts include: which emissions sources a company should include in their inventory and how to calculate them, what...

Multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis has been widely used to quantify the global environmental impacts (e.g. energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water use) embodied in consumption and international trade. Often, analysts have used approximations to a full global MRIO model; however,...

This paper is concerned with the main activities of Japan's 'Disclosure of CO2 emissions' programme, aimed at illustrating the CO2 emissions associated with consumer products as a 'carbon footprint' (CF). Although the current, provisional guidelines for calculating product carbon footprints...

How can we estimate the negative externalities of agriculture at the national level, and attribute these to specific production activities and outputs? The paper presents a method that calculates the mass flow in the whole agricultural sector including inputs from other sectors, and that allows...

We analyze the effects of free trade on environmental policies in a strategic setting with transboundary pollution. Trade liberalization can result in a race to the bottom in environmental outcomes, making both countries worse off. With command and control policies (quotas), there is no race to...

Policies of lowering carbon demand may aggravate rather than alleviate climate change (green paradox). In a two-period three-country general equilibrium model with finite endowment of fossil fuel one country enforces an emissions cap in the first or second period. When that cap is tightened the...

The literature on carbon leakage has not yet benefitted from many of the insights of the ‘New Economic Geography’ (NEG).  Most studies assume both an absence of agglomeration forces and that factors do not move inter-regionally.  This paper develops a 2-region NEG model with...

The European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is a cap and trade system to curb CO2 emissions. It has caused both direct costs (CO2 allowances) and indirect costs (higher electricity prices) to energy-intensive industries. Moreover, as there is no global CO2 agreement, the ETS could distort the...

In its third Phase (2013-20), the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme allocation methodology is shifting from grandfathering to a combination of auctioning and benchmarking. Free allocation is now be devoted to non-electricity generators only (save exemption), and is linearly decreasing...