Reducing pollution by adjusting China’s trade mix—A case study using SO 2 emissions

This paper investigates the impact of foreign trade on China’s pollution emissions using an input-output model. Generally speaking,as exports are more pollution-intensive than imports,foreign trade helps reduce China’s emissions. Given the huge surplus of trade in goods and declines in the ratio of import/export emission intensities,an emission deficit emerged in China’s foreign trade.The fundamental cause is the worsening product mix of foreign trade.With technical progress outpaced by foreign trade growth,however,total emissions of export goods have been on the rise.