PhD ceremony Carlotta Masciandaro: Distributional effects of climate policy and energy-transition measures
The urgency of climate change calls for climate policy and measures to achieve the energy transition. The latter includes the shift from a fossil-fuels-based energy system to one based on renewable energy sources.
While the effectiveness of these policies has been extensively studied, their distributional effects have received limited attention. These effects assess how the benefits and costs of climate policy and energy-transition measures are distributed across different groups in society.
Distributional effects are not inherently problematic, yet the unequal distribution of these policies’ effects can raise concerns about fairness and persistent disadvantages, both for groups of households and in terms of a level playing field for firms. These concerns can undermine public support for these measures, delaying implementation and ultimately threatening their effectiveness.