Speaker Keliang Xiao - Trade Policy and the Emissions Content of Agricultural Trade
- Event Type
- Seminar/Symposium
- Sponsor
- pERE (Program in Environmental and Resource Economics) - Job Market Paper
- Location
- 428 Mumford Hall
- Virtual
- Join online
- Date
- Oct 27, 2025 12:00 - 1:00 pm
- Speaker
- Keliang Xiao, PhD Student, Dept ACE, University of Illinois
- Views
- 43
Abstract
Agriculture's role in the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has come under increasing scrutiny. Simultaneously, global agricultural production and trade continue to rise due to ever-growing demand and persistent reductions in trade barriers. We investigate the implications of agricultural trade liberalization for global farm-gate GHG emissions embodied in traded agricultural commodities. To do this, we employ a structural gravity estimation and simulation framework to quantify the counterfactual impacts of tariff preferences on global trade flows, and the embodied emissions content of these flows, for a selection of prominent agricultural commodities. We document that tariff preferences have led to a global increase in trade-embodied emissions of nitrous oxides (N2O) and methane (CH4), two major greenhouse gases of 31.66 and 1053.91 kilotons, respectively---a CO2-equivalent increase of 37.90 megatons equaling 120.52% of global farm-gate GHG emissions from agriculture. Our findings underscore the critical need to balance trade policy with climate and environmental considerations.