EU ETS, Industrial Capacity and Trade Competitiveness

This dataset accompanies the study "Carbon Markets Beyond Emissions Reduction: Industrial Capacity, Carbon Price Exposure and Competitiveness — Insights from the EU ETS Functioning and Directions for Mechanism Improvement Report," which asks whether the emissions decline observed under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) reflects genuine decarbonisation of production or a contraction of industrial capacity. Because these two explanations carry very different implications for climate and industrial policy, the study reads three complementary margins of adjustment together for EU-27 manufacturing over 2013–2024: the evolution of the active-installation base, firms' net carbon price exposure relative to operating profitability (EBITDA), and the relationship between that exposure and international trade competitiveness. The evidence shows that the number of active installations fell by 14.6% over the period, while the net carbon burden became economically material in the most exposed sectors, indicating that part of the measured emissions reduction reflects a narrowing industrial base rather than cleaner production alone.

The file contains the three datasets used in the paper's three analyses, stacked one after another and each preceded by its own header: Dataset 1, an aggregate annual series on the installation perimeter (production, active installations and verified emissions); Dataset 2, a matched firm-level panel of 11,656 firm-year observations for 1,356 manufacturing firms linking emissions, free allocation and EBITDA; and Dataset 3, a product-level trade panel relating carbon exposure to import and export unit values. Together, these files allow the full analysis to be reproduced from the raw data. All descriptions and units of measurement of the variables used in the analysis are listed at the end of the same data file.