IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v233y2024ics0960148124012151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate change and income inequality: Does renewable energy matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Huynh, Cong Minh
  • Phan, Thi Nga

Abstract

Asia, the continent most vulnerable to climate change, presents policymakers with the dual challenges of significant income inequality and a scarcity of alternative energy sources. This paper investigates the impact of climate change on income inequality, and the role of renewable energy in moderating this impact for a panel data set of 36 Asian countries over the period of 1990–2021. Results from panel data analysis techniques show that climate change exacerbates the income inequality while renewable energy not only reduces income inequality but also lessens the detrimental impact of climate change on income equality through the channels of job creation and access to renewable energy. Remarkably, the role of renewable energy becomes stronger in those countries that are more exposed to climate change. The findings are robust with different estimation methods as well as various proxies of climate change and income inequality. These results highlight the critical role of renewable energy policies in promoting both environmental sustainability and socioeconomic equity. Through this paper, we aim to provide invaluable insights that can aid policymakers in making informed decisions to advance a future marked by sustainability, equity, and resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Huynh, Cong Minh & Phan, Thi Nga, 2024. "Climate change and income inequality: Does renewable energy matter?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:233:y:2024:i:c:s0960148124012151
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2024.121147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148124012151
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2024.121147?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiu, Chien-Liang & Chang, Ting-Huan, 2009. "What proportion of renewable energy supplies is needed to initially mitigate CO2 emissions in OECD member countries?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1669-1674, August.
    2. Harjanne, Atte & Korhonen, Janne M., 2019. "Abandoning the concept of renewable energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 330-340.
    3. Marshall Burke & Solomon M. Hsiang & Edward Miguel, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Nature, Nature, vol. 527(7577), pages 235-239, November.
    4. Nicolas Taconet & Aurélie Méjean & Céline Guivarch, 2020. "Influence of climate change impacts and mitigation costs on inequality between countries," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 15-34, May.
    5. Topcu, Mert & Tugcu, Can Tansel, 2020. "The impact of renewable energy consumption on income inequality: Evidence from developed countries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 1134-1140.
    6. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    7. Pan-Long Tsai, 1995. "Foreign direct investment and income inequality: Further evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 469-483, March.
    8. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 1962. "Rate of Profit and Income Distribution in Relation to the Rate of Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 267-279.
    9. Frazer, Garth, 2006. "Inequality and development across and within countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1459-1481, September.
    10. Frederick Solt, 2020. "Measuring Income Inequality Across Countries and Over Time: The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(3), pages 1183-1199, May.
    11. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Schlenker, Wolfram, 2014. "Empirical studies on agricultural impacts and adaptation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 555-561.
    12. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    13. Marshall Burke & Kyle Emerick, 2016. "Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from US Agriculture," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 106-140, August.
    14. Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2007. "Inequality and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(3), pages 454-465, August.
    15. Brian Aitken & Ann Harrison & Robert E. Lipsey, 2022. "Wages and foreign ownership A comparative study of Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 4, pages 61-87, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Stephane Hallegatte & Julie Rozenberg, 2017. "Climate change through a poverty lens," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(4), pages 250-256, April.
    17. Hertel, Thomas & Burke, Marshall & Lobell, David, 2010. "The Poverty Implications of Climate-Induced Crop Yield Changes by 2030," GTAP Working Papers 3196, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
    18. Cong Minh Huynh & Tan Loi Nguyen, 2020. "Shadow economy and income inequality: new empirical evidence from Asian developing countries," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 175-192, January.
    19. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    20. K.C., Surendra & Khanal, Samir Kumar & Shrestha, Prachand & Lamsal, Buddhi, 2011. "Current status of renewable energy in Nepal: Opportunities and challenges," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 4107-4117.
    21. Maximilian Auffhammer, 2018. "Quantifying Economic Damages from Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 33-52, Fall.
    22. Paglialunga, Elena & Coveri, Andrea & Zanfei, Antonello, 2022. "Climate change and within-country inequality: New evidence from a global perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    23. Li, Rongrong & Wang, Qiang & Li, Lejia & Hu, Sailan, 2023. "Do natural resource rent and corruption governance reshape the environmental Kuznets curve for ecological footprint? Evidence from 158 countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    24. H. Naci Mocan, 1999. "Structural Unemployment, Cyclical Unemployment, and Income Inequality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 122-134, February.
    25. Tatyana Deryugina & Solomon M. Hsiang, 2014. "Does the Environment Still Matter? Daily Temperature and Income in the United States," NBER Working Papers 20750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Filippidis, Michail & Tzouvanas, Panagiotis & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis, 2021. "Energy poverty through the lens of the energy-environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    27. Huynh, Cong Minh & Le, Quoc Nha & Lam, Thi Huong Tra, 2023. "Is air pollution a government failure or a market failure? Global evidence from a multi-dimensional analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    28. Bakhtiyari, Ziba & Yazdanpanah, Masoud & Forouzani, Masoumeh & Kazemi, Navab, 2017. "Intention of agricultural professionals toward biofuels in Iran: Implications for energy security, society, and policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 341-349.
    29. Cong Minh Huynh, 2021. "Foreign direct investment and income inequality: Does institutional quality matter?," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(8), pages 1231-1243, November.
    30. Bölük, Gülden & Mert, Mehmet, 2014. "Fossil & renewable energy consumption, GHGs (greenhouse gases) and economic growth: Evidence from a panel of EU (European Union) countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 439-446.
    31. Richard S. J. Tol, 2009. "The Economic Effects of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 29-51, Spring.
    32. Nathalie Chusseau & Michel Dumont, 2013. "Growing Income Inequalities in Advanced Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 1, pages 13-47, Palgrave Macmillan.
    33. Frances C. Moore & Delavane B. Diaz, 2015. "Temperature impacts on economic growth warrant stringent mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(2), pages 127-131, February.
    34. Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "CO2 emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy and economic growth in the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 2911-2915, June.
    35. Yang, Juan & Qiu, Muyuan, 2016. "The impact of education on income inequality and intergenerational mobility," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 110-125.
    36. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2012. "Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 66-95, July.
    37. Pasquale Tridico, 2018. "The determinants of income inequality in OECD countries [Political partisanship and welfare state reform in advanced industrial societies]," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1042.
    38. Hanif, Imran & Faraz Raza, Syed Muhammad & Gago-de-Santos, Pilar & Abbas, Qaiser, 2019. "Fossil fuels, foreign direct investment, and economic growth have triggered CO2 emissions in emerging Asian economies: Some empirical evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 493-501.
    39. Cong Minh Huynh, 2023. "Climate change and agricultural productivity in Asian and Pacific countries: how does research and development matter?," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 51(3), pages 712-729, August.
    40. Frances C. Moore & Delavane B. Diaz, 2015. "Erratum: Temperature impacts on economic growth warrant stringent mitigation policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(3), pages 280-280, March.
    41. Tokhtar Bolyssov & Bauyrzhan Yessengeldin & Gulvira Akybayeva & Zamzagul Sultanova & Azamat Zhanseitov, 2019. "Features of the Use of Renewable Energy Sources in Agriculture," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 9(4), pages 363-368.
    42. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    43. Burke, Marshall & Hsiang, Solomon M & Miguel, Edward, 2015. "Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3g72r0zv, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    44. Suman, A., 2021. "Role of renewable energy technologies in climate change adaptation and mitigation: A brief review from Nepal," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    45. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E. & Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "On the causal dynamics between emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and economic growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2255-2260, September.
    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. Paglialunga, Elena & Coveri, Andrea & Zanfei, Antonello, 2022. "Climate change and within-country inequality: New evidence from a global perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Desbordes, Rodolphe & Eberhardt, Markus, 2024. "Climate change and economic prosperity: Evidence from a flexible damage function," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Wenz, Leonie, 2020. "The impact of climate conditions on economic production. Evidence from a global panel of regions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Chang, Jun-Jie & Mi, Zhifu & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2023. "Temperature and GDP: A review of climate econometrics analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 383-392.
    5. Newell, Richard G. & Prest, Brian C. & Sexton, Steven E., 2021. "The GDP-Temperature relationship: Implications for climate change damages," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    6. Cong Minh Huynh & Nam Hoai Tran, 2023. "Financial development, income inequality, and institutional quality: A multi-dimensional analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2242128-224, June.
    7. Franziska Piontek & Matthias Kalkuhl & Elmar Kriegler & Anselm Schultes & Marian Leimbach & Ottmar Edenhofer & Nico Bauer, 2019. "Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1357-1385, August.
    8. Elena Paglialunga & Andrea Coveri & Antonello Zanfei, 2020. "Climate change and inequality in a global context. Exploring climate induced disparities and the reaction of economic systems," Working Papers 2003, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Economics, Society & Politics - Scientific Committee - L. Stefanini & G. Travaglini, revised 2020.
    9. Malpede, Maurizio & Percoco, Marco, 2024. "The long-term economic effects of aridification," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    10. Acevedo, Sebastian & Mrkaic, Mico & Novta, Natalija & Pugacheva, Evgenia & Topalova, Petia, 2020. "The Effects of Weather Shocks on Economic Activity: What are the Channels of Impact?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Nikhil Kaushik & Ashish Sharma & Poornima Mishra & Sunil Kumar, 2024. "Temperature Rising, Growth Descending: Climate Change Impacts on Asian Economies," Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, Emerging Markets Forum, vol. 16(3), pages 295-320, September.
    12. Meierrieks, Daniel & Stadelmann, David, 2024. "Is temperature adversely related to economic development? Evidence on the short-run and the long-run links from sub-national data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Gregory Casey & Stephie Fried & Ethan Goode, 2023. "Projecting the Impact of Rising Temperatures: The Role of Macroeconomic Dynamics," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(3), pages 688-718, September.
    14. Kahn, Matthew E. & Mohaddes, Kamiar & Ng, Ryan N.C. & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Raissi, Mehdi & Yang, Jui-Chung, 2021. "Long-term macroeconomic effects of climate change: A cross-country analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    15. Letta, Marco & Montalbano, Pierluigi & Tol, Richard S.J., 2018. "Temperature shocks, short-term growth and poverty thresholds: Evidence from rural Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 13-32.
    16. Tol, Richard S.J., 2019. "A social cost of carbon for (almost) every country," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 555-566.
    17. Getaneh Mihret Ayele & Fentaw Leykun Fisseha, 2024. "Does climate change affect the financial stability of Sub-Saharan African countries?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 177(10), pages 1-22, October.
    18. Nguyen, Ha Minh, 2024. "Beyond the annual averages: Impact of seasonal temperature on employment growth in US counties," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Gilli, Martino & Calcaterra, Matteo & Emmerling, Johannes & Granella, Francesco, 2024. "Climate change impacts on the within-country income distributions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Lagoarde-Segot, Thomas & Woitek, Ulrich, 2022. "Prenatal climate shocks and adult height in developing countries. Evidence from Japan (1872–1917)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asian countries; Climate change; Income inequality; Renewable energy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:renene:v:233:y:2024:i:c:s0960148124012151. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    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.