Abstract: With rapid development of regional economic integration and rapid growth of interprovincial trade, emissions embodied in interprovincial trade and the cost of emissions significantly cause unbalanced development of provinces and unsustainable regional economic development in China.Based on this, an environmental input-output model is first constructed in this paper to calculate the transfer amount of sulfur dioxide emissions embodied in interprovincial trade and the cost of emissions. Secondly, the emissions cost structural rationality assessment model is constructed to judge the rationality of sulfur dioxide emissions structure. Then, a structural decomposition analysis model is constructed to investigate the driving force of the change of sulfur dioxide emissions embodied in interprovincial trade. Finally, Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is selected for empirical analysis. The data comes from the multi-regional Input-output table in 2007 and 2010, China Statistical Yearbook, Provincial Statistical Yearbook, China Energy Statistical Yearbook and China Environmental Statistics Yearbook. An empirical study is conducted using sulfur dioxide emissions embodied in interprovincial trade.The results show that:First, the provinces for net sulfur dioxide emissions embodied in interprovincial trade outflow are developed provinces which obtain the economic benefits indirectly such as Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong. And Beijing is the biggest beneficiary. Meanwhile, the provinces for net sulfur dioxide emissions embodied in interprovincial trade inflow are developing provinces which bear the cost of emissions such as Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Hebei and Shanxi bear more emission cost for developed provinces. Second, the structure of sulfur dioxide embodied in interprovincial trade in developed provinces is clearly better than that of developing provinces. The growth of trade volume in interprovincial trade is difficult to compensate for the emissions cost undertaken by developing provinces. The most unreasonable sulfur dioxide structure is Shanxi. Third, the main driving forces are negative technical effect and positive scale effect, indicating that the improvement of the technical level can effectively reduce the cost of emissions, and the expansion of the industry scale will increase the cost of emissions. Fourth, according to the empirical research results, two policy recommendations are proposed:establishing the ecological compensation management mechanism under the regional linkage governance; and an investment adjustment mechanism based on SDA results. The conclusion can be used as an important reference for regional economic development decision-making, coordinate the balanced development of the provinces within the region, and promote the sustainable growth of the regional economy.

Key words: emissions embodied in interprovincial trade, cost of emissions embodied in interprovincial trade, environmental input-output model, emissions cost structural rationality assessment model, structural decomposition analysis model