Life-cycle analyses studies, findings

The short summary of the life-cycle method preceding the actual analyses is necessary, because life-cycle analysis is not a standard calculation. In the literature, one finds various definitions ranging from restricted net energy analyses over environmental impact studies to the full consideration of both environmental and social impacts. It is the latter methodology, more fully described in Sorensen (2004a), which will be employed here. 

In the last few years biodiesel has become a hot topic, which is impressively demonstrated by the large number of LCAs published to deal with this issue (6-13). The findings of these studies - although some of them compare the same life cycle, e.g. biodiesel from rape seed oil - are not always in accordance. One reason is that although these authors look at the same life cycle, they often cut out different scopes for their analysis. 

The empirical analysis of the hypotheses, however, can be difficult, because of multicolinearity between local production and local market attractiveness. Product-life-cycle theory suggests that foreign production activities are closely related to local market volume. To include foreign production volume and foreign market volume as exogenous variables could potentially lead to an unidentifiable regression matrix. Most of the earlier studies that include variables for production activities in the host country in their statistical analyses find a positive relationship to R D activities. 

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