As the global economy goes green, firms and policymakers need to determine which green sectors offer the greatest potential for success. An article in the latest issue of the Journal of Environment & Development, “Mapping Green Product Spaces of Nations,” takes a practical approach with ‘product space maps’ which can be produced for virtually any country:
Based on the “Product Space” model pioneered by Hidalgo, Klinger, Barabasi, and Hausmann (2007), this article proposes a data-based analytical approach to help policymakers identify green sectors and green products which a country is best positioned to produce and export. By explicitly displaying and analyzing green goods within the product space of a country, our approach, as outlined here, allows national policymakers and sectoral stakeholders to identify promising green growth options and design sectoral policies needed to support these. This article thus contributes to policymaking by offering a practical methodology which can serve as an additional tool to help countries interpret their own economic complexity, and to design and target green industrial policies in those sectors most likely to produce export gains.
Read the article, “Mapping Green Product Spaces of Nations,” published by Robert Hamwey, Henrique Pacini, and Lucas Assunção of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in the Journal of Environment & Development June 2013 issue, and sign up for e-alerts from the journal to get updates about new research and debate on the nexus of environment and development issues.
