Impacts of structural change in global trade on sustainable development

Jiayu Wang, Ke Wang, Klaus Hubacek, Kuishuang Feng, Yuli Shan, Yi-Ming Wei

Research output: Working paper/PreprintPreprint

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Abstract

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development pursues 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), the achievement of which may be influenced by a country’s role in global supply chains and position in international trade patterns. Global trade changes constantly with an increasing share of flows between developing countries. However, little is known about the impacts of change in trade on multi-dimensions of sustainable development at both global and country levels. Here we assess how structural change in trade during three time periods, between 2004 and 2014, impact 13 SDG indicators in 141 countries or regions. We find that socio-economic indicators (e.g., high- and medium-skilled labor, GDP) are less sensitive to change in trade, compared with resource and environmental indicators (e.g., water consumption, GHG emissions). Moreover, change in trade aggravated inequality among countries. The number of indicators that significantly worsened by change in trade decreased from eight indicators (2004–2007) to one (2011–2014) for high-income and upper-middle-income countries, but increased from five to fourteen for lower-middle-income and low-income countries. Furthermore, change in trade led to a coupling of value added with most resource and environmental indicators for low-income countries, while strengthening decoupling or reducing coupling for other countries.
Original languageEnglish
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Aug 2021

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