اثرات اقتصادی و اشتغال سیاست های کاهش دهنده تغییرات آب و هوایی در OECD: چشم انداز تعادل عمومی

Using a computable general equilibrium model, this paper aims at quantifying gross domestic product and labour impacts of an illustrative greenhouse gas emissions reduction policy. Labour markets are first assumed to be totally flexible, climate policies impact negatively GDP and show relatively limited labour sectoral reallocations compared to last 20 years changes. The model is then modified to incorporate labour market imperfections in OECD countries. In this case, the production costs of mitigation policy are affected in two ways: first by introducing extra costs due to the increased unemployment that such policy may entail; second by creating the possibility of a double dividend effect when carbon taxes are recycled so as to reduce distorting taxes on labour income.

Achieving ambitious environmental goals raises important transitional issues, as OECD and emerging economies will have to adjust to new patterns of growth. In particular, the realisation of a green growth agenda may translate into deep changes in the labour market that extend far beyond the creation of what are often labelled as “green jobs” (UNEP, ILO, IOE and ITUC, 2008). While there are a number of opportunities associated with green growth, there are also costs associated with the transition. These costs may be scattered across the economy, with a potentially heavy burden supported by “brown sectors” and local economies heavily dependent on these industries. Furthermore, reducing the environmental footprint of production will imply changes in technology, skill requirements and work organisation that occur along the whole value chain and thus affect the labour force very broadly. Both benefits and costs of a new growth pattern will be pervasive across the labour force. But analysing and assessing the employment impact of green growth policies is not an easy task and a lot remains to be done is this area. A general equilibrium approach is required to capture the direct and indirect channels through which these green policies can reshape labour markets and create structural adjustment pressures. This requires developing evaluation tools that incorporate detailed specifications of industries into multi-sectored general equilibrium models, but also a detailed modelling of labour market behaviour. Because labour market policies and institutions vary widely across countries, and interact in complex ways with policies in other markets, it remains quite a challenge to introduce a thorough representation of labour market functioning in environmental models that are already complex and not easily-tractable tools. Section 2 provides a brief (and highly selective) literature review of available studies that investigate the labour market implications of climate change mitigation policy, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. As there is little historical experience with low-carbon and resource efficient growth from which lessons could be drawn, this section also highlights potential analogies to other recent drivers of deep structural changes in labour markets, such as the ICT revolution and globalisation, in order to provide qualitative insights into the potential challenges that lie ahead. Section 3 provides a quantitative illustration of potential labour impacts associated to mitigation policies. The very aim of this illustrative exercise is to highlight and illustrate the main transition mechanisms at stake, rather than examining all possible economic implications of a transition toward a low-carbon and resource efficient growth. Hence, this quantitative analysis is limited in scope, focusing on climate change mitigation policies. These policies put a price on carbon emissions, therefore shifting away resources from fossil fuel energy, which is one of the main concerns associated with green growth policies. As illustrated in OECD (2011), green growth policies cannot be restricted to mitigation policies, as there are other ways to promote energy savings and energy efficiency. Yet, most environmental policies consist in putting a price signal on environmental damages resulting from economic activity (IEA, 2012). In order to clarify some of the general equilibrium effects associated with the implementation of mitigation policies, such as emission trading schemes (ETS), illustrative simulation exercises have been conducted under the assumption of fully flexible labour markets, using the OECD computable general equilibrium model (ENV-linkages). In Section 4, real wage rigidities are introduced in the model in order to shed some light on the potential employment impact of mitigation policies, the adjustment mechanisms at stake and their order of magnitude. While the modelling assumptions retained for these short-run wage rigidities are quite rudimentary, they illustrate the extent to which the recycling pattern of carbon taxes revenues could generate both environmental and economic benefits, the so-called double-dividend. Section 5 is the conclusion.

The simulation exercises performed in this paper using the OECD ENV-Linkage model illustrate to which extent certain policy mixes can improve both environmental and labour market performance. They also show that both the quality of labour market institutions and the redistribution of permit revenues need to be addressed together by policy-makers in order to reap the full potential benefit of climate change policies in terms of job creation. These conclusions are in line with many other studies analysing the employment impact of mitigation actions within the framework of a CGE or hybrid model (cf. Section 2.2). From a theoretical perspective, the role of recycling option in presence of labour market rigidities (cf. Section 4.2) illustrates the result of the “second-best theory” that playing accurately on fiscal wedges (here a mix of carbon tax and labour taxation reduction) in a second best world (characterised notably by labour market rigidities) could lead to welfare improvements. The interaction between income and employment effects of a climate change mitigation policy illustrated here remains somewhat reductive and number of caveats should be noticed. In essence, climate policies represent a timing issue: they require costs and economic adjustments in the short run to avoid larger costs and possible irreversible damages later. Likewise, most CGE models we do not account for the potential economic damages from climate change that could appear with longer range than the 20 years horizon considered here and, hence, omit the economic benefits from mitigation policies that operate through reduced environmental disruption. And the economic and employment damages from climate change may be large. This includes substantial destruction of physical capital through more intense and frequent storms, droughts and floods (Hanson et al., 2011). Another long run aspect not to be neglected is innovation, although intrinsically difficult to predict, the potential effects of carbon policies in stimulating the innovation in energy-efficient technologies is not fully captured here. Another way to extend our analysis is to take into account the absence of sector-specific rigidities in labour mobility. As indicated by Babiker and Eckaus (2007), in each economic activity a non negligible part of the employment is constituted by skilled-specific jobs. For such workers, the migration towards another sector, after structural change, is not straightforward and would generally call for extra human capital investment. This kind of sector specific rigidities or transition costs, in labour mobility should be integrated for depicts a more realistic situation; in such context an alternative efficient use of carbon revenues as education and formation could be envisaged.