12 April 2017

Katya Perez-Guzman joined ASA

Katya Perez-Guzman joined the Advanced Systems Analysis program as a Postdoctoral Research Scholar funded by The Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT). Her research work at IIASA focuses on network analysis of the world input-output database for Mexico and Brazil.


Katya Perez-Guzman has loved and adored Nature and yearned for a society whose political and economic dynamics are fully integrated into the wonderful biosphere that surrounds us. This clear orientation of her professional life led to her master's degree in Complex Systems and Non-linear Dynamics, and later a PhD, for which she studied the implications of the political economy of oil on a country's carbon dioxide emissions, focusing on Mexico. As a recognized student at Oxford's Latin American Centre, she studied various historical developmental problems of the Latin American region, such as Extractivism. All these topics have come together thanks to the support of the ASA program at IIASA, where Katya will carry out a network analysis of various world input output tables, looking for edge patterns that could characterize the implications of oil extraction on a country’s carbon intensity.

Neo-extractivism and the carbon curse: a network analysis of the world input-output database for Mexico and Brazil, 1995-2011

Most Latin American countries have based their economic growth on the extraction and exports of natural resources, with important implications for climate change. A proposed carbon curse relates abundance, extraction and exports of fossil fuels to higher carbon intensities, through inefficiency of production, crowding-out effects, weaker energy efficiency gains and subsidies.  Although relevant, none of these explanations incorporate structural causes, such as a possibly higher proportion of carbon intensive economic flows, both nationally and embedded in exports, especially when comparing countries with and without fossil fuels. Mapping a World Input Output Database with graph theory methods can quantity such structural drivers. However, conventional centrality measures are calculated from node attributes, such as degree or betweenness; comparing flows requires the use of more innovative edge centralities. The present study seeks to explore structural causes for the carbon curse, comparing between distinct edge centralities for Mexico and Brazil between 1995 and 2011, years of extractive intensification due to the countries’ opening to a global liberalized trade model. If the past can be a mold to shape the future, a structural measure of the carbon curse could give light to policy makers on how much the economy is closer (or not) toward a low carbon economy.



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Last edited: 20 April 2017

CONTACT DETAILS

Katya Perez Guzman

Research Scholar Strategic Initiatives Program

Research Scholar Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group - Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Postdoctoral research at IIASA

IIASA-Mexico CONACYT Postdoctoral Fellowship

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313