Exploring the relation of trade-specialisation on structural changes in energy intensity

Exploring the relation of trade-specialisation on structural changes in energy intensity: The effect of trade-specialisation on inter-country differences in energy intensity of industries

Oude Grotebevelsborg, Luuk (TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management)

Schröder, E. (mentor)
Blok, K. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

2021-08-18

Climate change has increased the interest around energy intensity to many researchers. Understanding the drivers of energy intensity is essential to produce a fitting policy. While structural changes have been acknowledged as drivers of economy-wide energy intensity, it has not been recognised as an influential factor on industry-level energy intensity because there is simply not enough data to do so. To generate a more reliable understanding of the mechanism that drives industries’ energy intensity, I explore the role of international trade on inter-country differences in the energy intensity of industries. The approach in this thesis shows with multiple panel data regressions how changes in trade specialisation in products explain inter-country differences in energy intensity of industries. The results estimate
that an industry’s energy intensity increases when it develops a comparative advantage in products whose production requires lots of energy, ceteris paribus, and decreases when it develops a comparative advantage in products whose production requires little energy. Since the effect of trade specialisation in one product goes on behalf of the effect of trade-specialisation in other products, there is a strong suspicion that there are changing compositions of industries. For policy changes, these results can provide insights into how a centralised approach in trade agreements and a decentralised approach in industry policies can tackle the industry’s energy-intensity problems. In future research, it might
be possible to accurately predict the composition effects by explaining the changes in the energy intensity of products with trade specialisation in products.

energy intensity of industries
structural changes
trade specialisation
international trade
disaggregate approach

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:92d07b60-92ee-4dfb-9b58-d97b2bff7d44

Student theses

master thesis

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