Bridging the gap between production and ecology: a multi-regional input-output analysis of current Brazilian and Chinese productive and ecological relations

Abstract

ABSTRACT The arising literature on Ecological Unequal Exchange (EUE) incorporates multiple elements of post-Keynesian strands, in particular the structuralist analysis of global economic relations and the center-periphery divide. Nevertheless, there is still little discussion in the literature on the synergies and interconnections of the productive and ecological aspects of the peripheral condition. This work intends to enter this debate by proposing a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis of the recent pattern of economic relations between Brazil and China, focusing on the evolution and linkages between the productive and the ecological aspects. The results show a rising unequal exchange of biophysical resources that flows from Brazil to China which is tied to key sectors of the recent Chinese catching-up process. In conclusion, it is argued that productive and ecological hierarchies entail two sides of the same coin of the peripheral condition.

Keywords

• Ecological unequal exchange
• structuralism
• environmentally-extended multi-regional input-output analysis