A study of the demand for materials in China's economy, based on province-level and sector-specific input and output data, finds that some provinces have a material footprint equivalent to medium-sized high-income countries and that provinces vary greatly in the material footprint per capita, even among provinces with similar levels of development, suggesting that policy efforts and development practices may reduce the intensity of material demand and avoid outsourcing of extraction activities to low-income provinces or countries, according to the authors.
Article #19-03028: "Provincial and sector-level material footprints in China," by Meng Jiang et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Bing Zhu, Tsinghua University, Beijing, CHINA; e-mail: bingzhu@tsinghua.edu.cn
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences