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on Resource Economics |
| By: | Lesly CASSIN (BETA Université de Lorraine); Paolo MELINDI-GHIDI (AMSE); Fabien PRIEUR (CEE-M Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the impact of income inequality on environmental policy in the presence of green consumers. We first perform an empirical analysis using a panel of European countries over the period 1995-2021. The results show a negative relationship between inequality and public environmental expenditure, which is weaker with higher inequality. We also find a negative correlation between environmental expenditure and green consumption, that highlights the substitutable nature of the relationship between the two variables. We next develop a model with two main ingredients: citizens with different income capacities have access to two commodities that differ in terms of environmental impact, and they vote on the environmental policy. In equilibrium, the population is divided into two groups, conventional vs green consumers. An increase in inequality raises the marginal cost of policy through size and composition effects. The higher the equilibrium tax, the larger the overall effect. This provides us with an explanation of the main empirical result. |
| Keywords: | income distribution, , inequality, green consumption, environmental public expenditure, |
| JEL: | Q58 H23 D31 D72 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:wpaper:2025.010 |
| By: | Peter Huybers; Marco Tabellini; Charles A. Taylor; Francesco Toti |
| Abstract: | What factors drove human migration before modern states, markets, and borders? We develop a sorting framework in which climate-specific subsistence knowledge depreciates with ecological distance. To test this, we use ancient DNA identity-by-descent segments to construct bilateral migration flows across Western Eurasia over the last 10, 000 years. We document three main findings. First, migration flows decline with differences in growing degree days, precipitation, and soil characteristics between origins and destinations. Second, the binding factor varies across subsistence systems: farmers exhibit strong thermal and soil matching, while pastoralists match most strongly on precipitation. Third, periods of warming increase farmer expansion while cooling increases pastoral expansion in patterns that recover known archaeological migration episodes. Migration also acts as a margin of climate adaptation: populations exposed to temperature change move to destinations that partly offset the shift. |
| JEL: | N01 N50 O13 Q54 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35371 |
| By: | Karine Constant (University of Orléans (LEO)); Marion Davin (CEE-M, Univ Montpellier); Emmanuelle Lavaine (CEE-M, Univ Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether income inequality within a population influences the health effects of pollution. Specifically, we empirically estimate the causal impact of particulate matter (PM10) on mortality in France, using wind direction as an instrumental variable, and explore how income inequality modifies this relationship. Our findings reveal a statistically and economically significant impact of pollution exposure on the mortality of individuals aged 50 or older, which intensifies in municipalities with higher levels of income inequality. More precisely, while the effect of PM10 is not significant in municipalities with the lowest levels of disparities, it is significant for the others and increases with the level of inequality within the municipalities. The impact of PM$_{10}$ on the mortality of individuals aged 50 or older in the top 33% of municipalities with the highest inequality is up to twice as large as in municipalities with intermediate levels of inequality. This result is particularly striking given that it concerns a country like France, which has relatively low income inequality. To provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential underlying mechanisms, we develop a theoretical model and empirically test its predictions. We conclude that the observed variation in vulnerability to pollution across municipalities, stratified by inequality levels, could have been but is not attributable to differences in public health expenditure, pollution exposure (between and within municipalities), or poverty prevalence and intensity. Our results suggest that inequality plays a significant role in environmental health, worthy of further research. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality, Air pollution, Particulate matter, Mortality, Health expenditures |
| JEL: | I14 Q53 Q56 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:wpaper:2025.06 |