The Importance of Retail Trade Margins for Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Consumer Expenditures: A Sensitivity Analysis

The Importance of Retail Trade Margins for Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Consumer Expenditures: A Sensitivity Analysis

Autor: Mgr. Milan Ščasný PhD.
Radomir Mach
Jan Weinzettel
Typ: IES Working Papers
Rok: 2020
Číslo: 19
ISSN / ISBN:  
Publikováno v: IES Working Papers 19/2020
Místo vydání: Prague
Klíčová slova: Environmentally extended input–output analysis, carbon footprint, GHG emissions, retail trade margins, product homogeneity assumption, sensitivity analysis
JEL kódy: C67, R15, Q56, Q57
Citace: Mach R., Scasny M. and Weinzettel J. (2020): "The Importance of Retail Trade Margins for Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Consumer Expenditures: A Sensitivity Analysis" IES Working Papers 19/2020. IES FSV. Charles University.
Abstrakt: If environmental footprint attributable to various consumption patterns are evaluated, monetary transactions in the environmentally-extended input-output analysis need to be linked to household-specific expenditures. However, while the former are recorded in basic prices, the latter is typically recorded in purchaser's prices, adding a commodity tax and margins to basic prices. Product homogeneity assumption —inherent to input-output analysis — implies that two identical products sold to consumers with different retail trade margins are responsible for different footprints. In this paper we investigate how footprint attributable to Food and Goods is affected across household income classes if we relax the homogeneity assumption and assume different allocations of retail trade margins across the income classes. While different allocations affect footprints of the two Consumption groups significantly, in particular in the highest deciles, the effect on total footprint is very small, up to 10% even for two extreme cases of margins allocation.
Ke stažení: wp_19_2020_scasny_weinzettel.pdf