Global Value Chains, Economic Complexity and Carbon Emissions

We draw on network analysis to examine the impact of Global Value Chain embeddedness on carbon emissions between 2000 to 2014 taking account of country economic complexity.
A country network of value added is constructed, and a Temporal Network Autocorrelation Model is applied to examine the impact of network position in the GVC. Also examining the emissions along value chains on the CO₂ emissions of a country.
We challenge a number of extensively researched hypotheses in the literature. We first find weak evidence of a positive impact of GVC participation on CO₂ emissions. We also do not find support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis. Additionally, we find no significant relationship between economic complexity (as defined by Hidalgo and Hausmann) to the level of country emissions.

Ecological Economics 228, 2025