1887

OECD Environment Working Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available.

English

The consequences of a more resource efficient and circular economy for international trade patterns

A modelling assessment

This report investigates the effects of a resource efficiency and circular economy (RE-CE) transition on international trade flows, using the OECD’s ENV-Linkages model. A global RE-CE policy package will cause secondary materials to become cheaper, while primary materials become more expensive to produce. By 2040, primary non-ferrous metals are projected to decline by 35-50%, primary iron & steel by 15% and primary non-metallic minerals by around 10%. Regional shifts in production and trade-related effects (shifts in the regional sourcing of the primary materials by the materials processing sectors) account for roughly one-third of the total reduction in materials use. The other two thirds of materials use reduction come from scale effects (reduced economic activity) and efficiency effects (reduced materials use per unit of output of the processed commodities).

English

Keywords: general equilibrium model, trade and environment, circular economy, resource efficiency
JEL: O14: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology; F18: International Economics / Trade / Trade and Environment; O44: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / Environment and Growth; Q53: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling; C68: Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling / Computable General Equilibrium Models
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