Many industrialized countries have implemented environmental policies in order to reduce emissions that are harmful to the environment and global climate. While the benefits of such policies accrue in form of increased health, worker productivity, and quality of life, the costs of environmental regulations are mostly borne through potential impacts on industrial activity and labor market outcomes. Thus successful policy development requires detailed information on the connection between environmental regulations and labor markets as well as industrial activity.
The aim of the 2016 workshop of IZA’s “Environment and Employment” program area is to bring together researchers analyzing wider labor market impacts of environmental policies. We particularly encourage submissions of papers that provide credible empirical evidence on the following issues:
- Effects on sectoral energy prices, industrial output and employment;
- Effects on individual productivity, human capital acquisition and well-being;
- Labor market effects of structural transitions towards renewable energy sources;
- Design of optimal public policies, such as taxation of energy consumption, with regard to their distributional impacts.
