Atmospheric emissions and structural path analysis in the Spanish economy

The objective of this paper is to integrate Spanish atmospheric pollution and macro-economic data in order to identify the main drivers of atmospheric pollution in Spain. This paper uses data from the Satellite Atmospheric Emissions Accounts as well as the 2002 input-output tables both published by the Spanish National Statistics Institute. The identification and analysis of the input paths of air pollution in the Spanish production system is performed using Structural Path Analysis (SPA) in a generalised input-output framework. This methodology allows for the detection of "hidden" sectors in the generation of pollution. Our results rank the energetic sectors, food processing industries, other manufacturing industries and transportation as the sectors with the highest emission intensities. Our results also show the production layers contribution in each pollutant, identifying fluorocarbons and ammonia as the substances with higher up-stream sources.