IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/blg/journl/v15y2020i3p223-235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact Of Climate Change On Income Inequality. Evidence From European Union Countries

Author

Listed:
  • ALBU Ada-Cristina

    (Institute for World Economy, Romanian Academy, Romania)

  • ALBU Lucian-Liviu

    (Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Romania)

Abstract

We will investigate in this paper the relation between income inequality and climate change, taking into account that the increase of carbon emissions has among consequences the increase of inequalities. The most vulnerable to climate change are the poorest and less developed countries. Climate change represents an important challenge for EU policymakers and the transition to zero-carbon emissions will lead to greater social inclusion and convergence among EU countries. We use in this paper two-stage OLS in order to analyse the relationship between income inequality and carbon emissions in case of EU countries.. We apply our model to two groups of European Union countries, the old member states - EU15 and new member states - EU13. Our results confirm that there are important differences between the two groups regarding the relationship between climate change and income inequalities. Therefore, policies implemented at EU level are extremely important in order to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on growing inequality and poverty in EU countries. Governments must invest in new technologies, industries and innovation in order to address the complex challenge posed by mitigating climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • ALBU Ada-Cristina & ALBU Lucian-Liviu, 2020. "The Impact Of Climate Change On Income Inequality. Evidence From European Union Countries," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 15(3), pages 223-235, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:blg:journl:v:15:y:2020:i:3:p:223-235
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eccsf.ulbsibiu.ro/RePEc/blg/journl/15315albu.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alassane Drabo, 2011. "Impact of Income Inequality on Health: Does Environment Quality Matter?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(1), pages 146-165, January.
    2. Donadelli, Michael & Grüning, Patrick & Jüppner, Marcus & Kizys, Renatas, 2021. "Global temperature, R&D expenditure, and growth," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    3. Boyce, James K., 1994. "Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 169-178, December.
    4. Jeong Hwan Bae, 2018. "Impacts of Income Inequality on CO2 Emission under Different Climate Change Mitigation Policies," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 34, pages 187-211.
    5. James Boyce, 1994. "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental Degradation," Published Studies ps1, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    6. Scruggs, Lyle A., 1998. "Political and economic inequality and the environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 259-275, September.
    7. Heerink, Nico & Mulatu, Abay & Bulte, Erwin, 2001. "Income inequality and the environment: aggregation bias in environmental Kuznets curves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 359-367, September.
    8. James Boyce, 2007. "Is Inequality Bad for the Environment?," Working Papers wp135, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    9. Lin Guo, 2014. "Co2emissions And Regional Income Disparity: Evidence From China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 59(01), pages 1-20.
    10. Ravallion, Martin & Heil, Mark & Jalan, Jyotsna, 2000. "Carbon Emissions and Income Inequality," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 651-669, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Uddin, Md. Main & Mishra, Vinod & Smyth, Russell, 2020. "Income inequality and CO2 emissions in the G7, 1870–2014: Evidence from non-parametric modelling," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Federica Cappelli, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," Working Papers 2024.06, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    3. Cappelli, Federica, 2024. "Unequal contributions to CO2 emissions along the income distribution within and between countries," FEEM Working Papers 341641, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    4. Feng Wang & Jian Yang & Joshua Shackman & Xin Liu, 2021. "Impact of Income Inequality on Urban Air Quality: A Game Theoretical and Empirical Study in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-17, August.
    5. Grunewald, Nicole & Klasen, Stephan & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Muris, Chris, 2017. "The Trade-off Between Income Inequality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 249-256.
    6. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso & Leon Pilgrim, 2023. "Revisiting the link between income inequality and emissions," Working Papers 2023.04, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    7. Nicholas Marinucci & Kris Ivanovski, 2023. "Does Inequality Affect Climate Change? A Regional and Sectoral Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 705-729, April.
    8. Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen & Wang, Jinxian & Zhang, Xun, 2022. "The income inequality-CO2 emissions nexus: Transmission mechanisms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    9. Abebe Hailemariam & Ratbek Dzhumashev & Muhammad Shahbaz, 2020. "Carbon emissions, income inequality and economic development," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1139-1159, September.
    10. Yongming Wang & Irfan Uddin & Yingmei Gong, 2021. "Nexus between Natural Resources and Environmental Degradation: Analysing the Role of Income Inequality and Renewable Energy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-20, July.
    11. Adua, Lazarus, 2022. "Super polluters and carbon emissions: Spotlighting how higher-income and wealthier households disproportionately despoil our atmospheric commons," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    12. Coondoo, Dipankor & Dinda, Soumyananda, 2008. "Carbon dioxide emission and income: A temporal analysis of cross-country distributional patterns," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 375-385, April.
    13. Francesco Nicolli & Marianna Gilli & Francesco Vona, 2022. "Inequality and Climate Change: Two Problems, One Solution?," Working Papers 2022.32, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    14. Andersson, Fredrik N.G., 2023. "Income inequality and carbon emissions in the United States 1929–2019," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    15. Alassane Drabo, 2011. "Impact of Income Inequality on Health: Does Environment Quality Matter?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(1), pages 146-165, January.
    16. Wolde-Rufael, Yemane & Idowu, Samuel, 2017. "Income distribution and CO2 emission: A comparative analysis for China and India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1336-1345.
    17. Asongu, Simplice A & Odhiambo, Nicholas M, 2020. "Inequality and Renewable Energy Consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implication for High Income Countries," Working Papers 26932, University of South Africa, Department of Economics.
    18. Cantos, José Mª & Balsalobre Lorente, Daniel, 2011. "Las energías renovables en la Curva de Kuznets Ambiental: Una aplicación para España/Renewable Energy in the Environmental Kuznets Curve: An Application to Spain," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 29, pages 667(32.)-66, Agosto.
    19. Obadiah Jonathan Gimba & Abdulkareem Alhassan & Huseyin Ozdeser & Wafa Ghardallou & Mehdi Seraj & Ojonugwa Usman, 2023. "Towards low carbon and sustainable environment: does income inequality mitigate ecological footprints in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(9), pages 10425-10445, September.
    20. Sudeshna Ghosh, 2019. "Environmental Pollution, Income Inequality, and Household Energy Consumption: Evidence from the United Kingdom," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(02), pages 1-31, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:blg:journl:v:15:y:2020:i:3:p:223-235. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mihaela Herciu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feulbro.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.