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Climate policies and skill-biased employment dynamics : evidence from EU countries

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  • Giovanni Marin

    (University of Urbino "Carlo Bo" SEEDS Ferrara, Italy)

  • Francesco Vona

    (OFCE & Sciences Po Paris)

Abstract

The political acceptability of climate policies is undermined by job-killing arguments, especially for the least-skilled workers. However, evidence for distributional impacts for different workers remains scant. We examine the associations between climate policies, proxied by energy prices and a stringency index, and workforce skills for 14 European countries and 15 industrial sectors over the period of 1995-2011. We find that, while the long-term decline in employment in most carbon-intensive sectors is unrelated to policy stringency, climate policies have been skill biased against manual workers and have favoured technicians and professionals. This skill bias is confirmed using a shift-share instrumental variable estimator

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Marin & Francesco Vona, 2018. "Climate policies and skill-biased employment dynamics : evidence from EU countries," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2018-23, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    • Handle: RePEc:fce:doctra:1823
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    Cited by:

    1. Lucas Bretschger & Karen Pittel, 2019. "Twenty Key Questions in Environmental and Resource Economics," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 19/328, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate policies; workforce skills; cluster analysis; multiple exposure to sturctural shocks;

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects

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