Macroeconomic issues: jobs, poverty and 'green' growth
Topic lead: Alex Bowen
This research topic extends the range of techniques used to study macroeconomic aspects of the transition to green growth, and allows more focus on the short-run implications of green-growth policies.
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Our research strategy is to focus on two areas of enquiry: first, the interaction of business cycles, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change policies, using techniques drawn from time-series analysis and other empirical macroeconomic approaches; and, second, on the implications of ‘green’ policies for labour markets and public finance and the incidence of mitigation costs in different types of economy, using small analytical macro models.
The initial research work will cover:
- The ‘stylised facts’ about how emissions vary over business cycles in different types of economy;
- Small analytical models of different representative/idealised types of economy incorporating key features, especially (a) a more sophisticated treatment of labour markets than had been possible in input-output style ‘green jobs’ analyses, incorporating labour market and macroeconomic aspects commonly neglected in integrated assessment models, and, (b) the prospective arrival of a climate-change backstop technology;
- The theoretical consequences in analytical economic growth models of switching to more labour-intensive energy technologies.