• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.21-36
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• 2022

Purpose - Carbon emission standards are based on the "production-based carbon emissions" generated by the production of goods in the relevant country which were the existing measurement methods. However, can such carbon emissions measurement standards be established international? For example, some of the goods produced in developing countries are produced for the demand of developed countries. The method of measuring carbon emission based on the final demand of a certain country is called "consumption-based carbon emissions." This study compares productionand consumption-based CO₂ emissions according to economic growth in ninety-three countries categorized by income level. Design/methodology - Our empirical model considers the difference between production- and consumption-based CO₂ emissions according to economic growth. Also, our model investigated whether the EKC hypothesis in most of the previous studies that had been based on production-based emissions was also established in the consumption-based emission model. Considering the continuous characteristics of CO₂, we utilized the generalized method of moments (GMM), specifically a system GMM econometric technique because CO₂ in the previous period can affect CO₂ in the present period. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: The results show that for the consumption-based CO₂ emissions model, CO₂ continuously increases as economic growth increases in the upper-middle income countries. The inverted U-shaped result was found in the case of the production-based model. However, in the lower-income countries, an inverted-U shape in which CO₂ emissions decrease at some point as the economy grows in the production-based model does not appear. On the other hand, in the consumption-based model, an inverted U-shaped result was obtained when estimating with system-GMM. Additionally, the proportion of manufacturing, energy imports, and energy consumption had an effect on both the production- and the consumption-based model regardless of the group's CO₂ emissions. On the basis of such assessments, policymakers need to consider not only production- but also consumption-based options. Originality/value - Previous studies have mainly focused on production-based CO₂ emissions, with most of them revolving around economic growth or the effect of various social and economic factors on CO₂ emissions. However, this study considers the relationship with economic growth using consumption-based emissions as a dependent variable by classifying ninety-three countries by income level.