The impact of remanufacturing in the economy

Very few durable goods are recovered at the end of their useful lives. Howe ver, this situation could reverse with the development of a stronger remanu facturing industry in the economy. This paper evaluates the impact of reman ufacturing in a hypothetical situation where remanufacturing holds a signif icant share of the economy, presently dominated by the original manufacturi ng industries. We adapt the inter-industry input-output framework with the development of a methodology to consider these changes. Subsequently, we ap ply the model to the 30-sector aggregation of the French input-output natio nal data to illustrate the method and to evaluate the impact that remanufac turing may have on the economy. Remanufacturing sectors substitute labor an d transport services for the usual inputs such as raw materials and semi-fi nished goods. We find that remanufacturing may satisfy the same final deman d from all sectors requiring fewer intermediate resources. Consequently, th e economy observes proportionally higher demand for labor and all other pro ducts. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.