132 / 2024-02-26 11:51:45

Trade-embodied air pollution, shared responsibility and cross-regional compensation

Dual circulation,Trade-embodied air pollution,Shared responsibility,Convex quantile regression,Economic compensation mechanism

Trade-embodied air pollution poses significant challenges to transboundary pollution governance and cross-regional compensation. In the context of the dual circulation development paradigm, this study uses the global multiregional input‒output (MRIO) model to calculate the trade-embodied air pollution among Chinese provinces in 2017. From the perspective of shared responsibility based on trade-embodied value added, the sharing coefficient is calculated, and convex quantile regression (CQR) is used to estimate the pollution abatement cost, thus clarifying the amounts and directions of cross-regional economic compensation. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) In terms of the total emission amounts, the amount of trade-embodied CO is the largest, followed by VOC and NOx. The energy sector accounts for the largest share of pollution on the production side (41.81%), and the industrial sector has the largest share on the consumption side (46.48%). Regarding the direction of transfer, pollution tends to shift from developed provinces to neighboring or less developed provinces. (2) Adjusting pollution reduction responsibilities through trade-embodied value added can effectively achieve a “symmetry of rights and responsibilities”. The sharing coefficients fluctuate within the range of 0.047-0.953, indicating significant differences in the regional distribution. (3) Regarding abatement costs, trade-embodied CO has the highest total amount and the lowest shadow price. In contrast, trade-embodied NH3  has a lower total amount but the highest shadow price. Due to activities such as industrial transfer, provinces such as Zhejiang and Henan should compensate provinces such as Fujian and Hebei. However, regional differences in shadow prices have led to a situation in which some provinces that transfer net pollution become compensated parties while provinces that receive net pollution become compensating parties. Based on the division of responsibilities, industrial structure adjustment, pollution governance and abatement costs, policy recommendations for trade-embodied air pollution governance are proposed.