Research

Peer-reviewed

Climate change and the global distribution of wealth (with L. Chancel, C. Mohren and G. Semienuk) Nature Climate Change (2025)

Schematic showing how climate or policy changes affect private-sector income and wealth, with bar charts of income and wealth shares by decile and of income and asset composition for the bottom 50%, middle 40%, next 9% and top 1%.

Working Papers

Is There a Local Green Dividend? Evidence from Industrial Shutdowns in Germany

Abstract

Large industrial facilities are both sources of pollution and anchors of local labor demand. This paper exploits the staggered timing of 346 facility shutdowns in Germany over the period 2017–2021 to estimate their effects on local environmental and economic conditions.Plant closures induce moderate improvements in local air quality, particularly benefiting low-income neighborhoods. Despite these environmental gains, housing prices decline significantly, reaching a 3.1% reduction three years post-closure. This decline reflects adverse local labor market shocks. Specifically, average disposable income falls and unemployment rates rise in surrounding neighborhoods, with effects sharply concentrated in neighborhoods where industrial employment is high at baseline. A simple location choice framework indicates that in these areas, the labor market shock dominates any environmental amenity gains. These results show that the removal of a local pollution source does not automatically generate a “green dividend” for surrounding communities.

Conference & Seminar Presentations
  • Inequality and the Environment Symposium (Sciences Po Paris)
  • Harvard Graduate Student Workshop in Environmental Economics (Harvard Kennedy School)
  • Parisian PhD Seminar on Environmental Economics (CIRED, Paris)
  • Applied Economics Lunch Seminar (Paris School of Economics)
  • ENS Lyon Junior Workshop
  • FSR Annual Climate Conference (EUI, Florence)
  • 2025 AUROE Workshop (ZEW Mannheim)
  • 18th RGS Doctoral Conference (TU Dortmund)
  • EAERE Annual Conference 2025 (NHH Bergen)
  • 2025 EEA Meeting (Bordeaux School of Economics)
  • 2nd Early Career Workshop on Applied Environmental and Climate Change Economics (FEEM, Milan)

Event-study plot of the effect on log disposable household income against relative time to treatment, showing flat pre-trends and a decline after treatment for both the baseline effect and the high industrial employment group, with shaded confidence bands.

Global Income Inequality by 2050: Convergence, Redistribution, and Climate Change (with L. Chancel, A. Gethin and C. Mohren)

Abstract

This article investigates how national income convergence, government redistribution, and climate change will shape the global distribution of income until 2050. Despite ongoing convergence in national income, the global bottom 50% post-tax income share only marginally rises from 10% to 12% under “business-as-usual”, while the top 1% share remains constant. Yet, modest national-level redistribution policies can raise the global bottom 50% share to up to 19%. Policies involving redistribution of pre-tax income are particularly effective in reducing global inequality. Climate change is set to exacerbate inequalities, potentially offsetting all convergence effects since 1980.

Growth incidence curve plotting total income growth against the global g-percentile for three series: historical 1980 to 2023, business-as-usual, and a combined scenario.

Equality and Development: A comparative & Historical Perspective (with M. Andreescu et al.)

Abstract

This paper uses extended series on income and wealth inequality from the World Inequality Database (WID) covering all world regions over the 1800-2025 period, together with new series on hourly productivity and human capital expenditure, to revisit the relationship between equality and development, with a much broader comparative and historical perspective than previous studies. Over the long-run, we find a strong positive association between equality and productivity. Our proposed interpretation is that the rise of inclusive “social-democratic” institutions (including extended access to human capital, public services and democratic participation) led both to more equality and higher productivity, particularly in Western and Nordic Europe. We discuss the implications for future sustainable development strategies.

Income shares in Western Europe from 1800 to 2025, showing the share of total post-tax income held by the top 10 percent, middle 40 percent and bottom 50 percent.

Work in Progress

Climate Change, Labour Markets, and Wage Inequality (with Romano Tarsia, draft available on request)

Policy Work

Climate Inequality Report 2023: Fair taxes for a sustainable future in the global south (with L. Chancel and T. Voituriez)

The potential of wealth taxation to address the triple climate inequality crisis (with L. Chancel and T. Voituriez) Nature Climate Change 14, 5–7 (2024).