The evolution of global trade and impacts on countries’ carbon trade imbalances

• We pool multi-regional input output analysis with stochastic actor-oriented models.
• We study between-country variances over a ten-year period (2000–2010).
• We test hypotheses drawn from ecological unequal exchange theory.
• We test hypotheses drawn from regionalization perspectives.
• Controlling for network endogeneity shows patterns other than hypothesized ones.

We examine carbon trade imbalances among 172 countries over a 10-year period (2000–2010). A carbon trade imbalance refers to the extent to which the carbon emissions embodied in a country's exports exceeds the emissions embodied in its imports. Although past research has considered how such imbalances coincide with variances in wealth and/or trade patterns, none have considered how such imbalances arise in the context of an evolving network structure. In this paper, we consider trade networks and carbon trade imbalances as co-evolving phenomena, and study these using an innovative combination of multi-regional input–output (MRIO) analysis with stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs). Our findings both challenge and support arguments made by ecological unequal exchange theory and the Gravity Model, and highlight the role emerging economies play in shaping network structure and the distribution of carbon trade balances overtime.