CONVERGENCE BETWEEN THE EORA, WIOD, EXIOBASE, AND OPENEU'S CONSUMPTION-BASED CARBON ACCOUNTS

AbstractIn this paper, we take an overview of several of the biggest independently constructed global multi-regional input–output (MRIO) databases and ask how reliable and consonant these databases are. The key question is whether MRIO accounts are robust enough for setting environmental policies. This paper compares the results of four global MRIOs: Eora, WIOD, EXIOBASE, and the GTAP-based OpenEU databases, and investigates how much each diverges from the multi-model mean. We also use Monte Carlo analysis to conduct sensitivity analysis of the robustness of each accounts' results and we test to see how much variation in the environmental satellite account, rather than the economic structure itself, causes divergence in results. After harmonising the satellite account, we found that carbon footprint results for most major economies disagree by<10% between MRIOs. Confidence estimates are necessary if MRIO methods and consumption-based accounting are to be used in environmental policy-making at the national level.Keywords: MRIOFootprintCBAMonte CarloUncertaintyReliabilityConfidence Notes1At the statistical level MRIOs are represented as Supply and Use Tables, and MRIOs embody a modelling choice already, but we more loosely use the term MRIO to refer to collection of databases relevant for CBA.2Other models, such as GRAM based on the OECD IO tables (CitationWiebe et al., 2012), were not included because they were not publicly available to the authors at time of publication.