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It is critical to ensure climate and energy policies are just, equitable and beneficial for communities, both to sustain public support for decarbonisation and address multifaceted societal challenges. Our objective in this article is to examine the diverse social outcomes that have resulted from climate policies, in varying contexts worldwide, over the past few decades. We review 203 ex-post climate policy assessments that analyse social outcomes in the literature. We systematically and comprehensively map out this work, identifying articles on carbon, energy and transport taxes, feed-in-tariffs, subsidies, direct procurement policies, large renewable deployment projects, and other regulatory and market-based interventions. We code each article in terms of their studied social outcomes and effects, with a focus on electricity access, energy affordability, community cohesion, employment, distributional and equity issues, livelihoods and poverty, procedural justice, subjective well-being and drudgery. Our analysis finds that climate and energy policies often fall short of delivering positive social outcomes. Nonetheless, across country contexts and policy types there are manifold examples of climate policymaking that does deliver on both social and climate goals. This requires attending to distributive and procedural justice in policy design, and making use of appropriate mechanisms to ensure that policy costs and benefits are fairly shared. We emphasize the need to further advance ex-post policy assessments and learn about what policies work for a just transition.

Abstract To support equitable adaptation planning, quantitative assessments should consider the fairness of the distribution of outcomes to different people. What constitutes a fair distribution, however, is a normative question. In this study, we explore the use of different moral principles drawn from theories of distributive justice to evaluate fairness. We use adaptation planning in Vietnam Mekong Delta as a case study. We evaluate the preference ranking of six alternative policies for seven moral principles across an ensemble of scenarios. Under the baseline scenario, each principle yields distinctive preference rankings, though most principles identify the same policy as the most preferred one. Across the ensemble of scenarios, the commonly used utilitarian principle yields the most stable ranking, while rankings from other principles are more sensitive to uncertainty. The sufficientarian and the envy-free principles yield the most distinctive ranking of policies, with a median ranking correlation of only 0.07 across all scenarios. Finally, we identify scenarios under which using these two principles results in reversed policy preference rankings. Our study highlights the importance of considering multiple moral principles in evaluating the fairness of adaptation policies, as this would reduce the possibility of maladaptation.

A companion to the bestseller, The Impact of Economic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution, this title deals with theoretical challenges and cutting-edge macro-micro linkage models. The authors compare the predictive and analytical power of various macro-micro linkage techniques using the traditional RHG approach as a benchmark to evaluate standard policies, such as, a typical stabilization package and a typical structural reform policy.

Government spending can be effective and have the desired effect on the level of socioeconomic development when there is consistency and compliance of government agencies with the development agenda a nation adopts. Social indicators (education and healthcare) in Nigeria over the past decade have not been on track with the distributive outcome targets set by the 2004 social sector reforms despite scaling up funding in the two key social sectors (education and healthcare). The study employs a welfare distribution analysis through concentration curves and conducting several dominance tests to ascertain who benefited from public spending in these sectors. Findings suggest that apart from public primary education and healthcare for urban residents, no other level of social service was absolutely progressive for all or by gender or by location. These results were not better than the results of 2003 before these reforms were introduced. The study therefore recommends that strengthening policies should be followed by institutional intensification and other several interrelated areas to attain effectiveness of public spending. Also budget drafting in the executive and legislature must be guided by relevant priority documentation while project costs should be realistic and not inflated as evidenced by several other similar studies and reviews to achieve its desired goals.

The costs of public higher education have risen dramatically in recent years, causing anger among students and concern among policymakers worried about falling college completion rates. In this paper, we explore how public tuition costs affect postsecondary enrollment choices. We examine changes over time in the enrollment decisions of students in states where tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased rapidly, compared with changes for observationally similar students in states with more modest tuition increases. Using student-level data on twelfth graders in 1992 and 2004 linked to institution-level data, we find a relative decline in the likelihood of attending an in-state public four-year institution among high school graduates from states where public tuition costs increased substantially over this period. Students in states where public tuition increased the most were considerably more likely to enroll in a public two-year college than their counterparts in states that adopted more modest increases. We explore heterogeneity in this pattern of substitution between institutions of varying selectivity and control and for students in policy-relevant socio-demographic subgroups, including those in different parts of the twelfth-grade achievement distribution. Generally, large tuition increases at public four-year colleges have weakened the propensity of high school graduates to enroll in such institutions in their state, and increased their likelihood of enrollment in less prestigious in-state public colleges, out-of-state public institutions, or private universities. These effects are most pronounced among students from families of low socioeconomic status, and nonelite students who perform below the 90th percentile on twelfth-grade math tests.

Has access to selective postsecondary schools expanded or contracted? Evaluating this question has proven a difficult task because data are limited, particularly with regard to family income. We complement previous work and provide a replicable model of institutional analysis. This paper presents a detailed, quantitative assessment of admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an elite flagship public university—the type that is supposed to offer excellent opportunities to students from all backgrounds. We use an innovative measure of family income to compare applicant, admissions, and enrollment trends for low-income and minority students from 1972 to 2007. The unique aspects of this study include the more reliable measure of income and the ability to look at the full process from applications, admissions, and matriculations (demand and supply), not generally available in national datasets.

College-for-all has become the educational policy in the United States, and it has led to many changes. Postsecondary subbaccalaureate (sub-BA) credentials (certificates and associate's degrees) are an increasing portion of college credentials, and we examine the implications for the reproduction of social inequalities. We find that despite the growth of sub-BA credentials, many students who enroll in college continue to get no credentials. After replicating prior findings of sub-BA employment and earnings payoffs, using the 2004–2012 Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) survey, we analyze the AddHealth survey to see whether sub-BA credentials are associated with jobs with nonmonetary job rewards similar to those BAs get (autonomy, career relevance, and so on). Moreover, although BA degrees often reproduce social and academic inequalities, we examine whether sub-BA credentials pose socioeconomic status (SES) and test score obstacles to credential completion, and to employment and earnings within credentials. Beyond the usual earnings payoffs in prior research, we conclude that sub-BA credentials provide ways college students can attain desirable job rewards while avoiding SES and test score obstacles. We speculate on possible reasons and policy implications.

College-for-all has become the educational policy in the United States, and it has led to many changes. Postsecondary subbaccalaureate (sub-BA) credentials (certificates and associate's degrees) are an increasing portion of college credentials, and we examine the implications for the reproduction of social inequalities. We find that despite the growth of sub-BA credentials, many students who enroll in college continue to get no credentials. After replicating prior findings of sub-BA employment and earnings payoffs, using the 2004–2012 Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) survey, we analyze the AddHealth survey to see whether sub-BA credentials are associated with jobs with nonmonetary job rewards similar to those BAs get (autonomy, career relevance, and so on). Moreover, although BA degrees often reproduce social and academic inequalities, we examine whether sub-BA credentials pose socioeconomic status (SES) and test score obstacles to credential completion, and to employment and earnings within credentials. Beyond the usual earnings payoffs in prior research, we conclude that sub-BA credentials provide ways college students can attain desirable job rewards while avoiding SES and test score obstacles. We speculate on possible reasons and policy implications.

The costs of public higher education have risen dramatically in recent years, causing anger among students and concern among policymakers worried about falling college completion rates. In this paper, we explore how public tuition costs affect postsecondary enrollment choices. We examine changes over time in the enrollment decisions of students in states where tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased rapidly, compared with changes for observationally similar students in states with more modest tuition increases. Using student-level data on twelfth graders in 1992 and 2004 linked to institution-level data, we find a relative decline in the likelihood of attending an in-state public four-year institution among high school graduates from states where public tuition costs increased substantially over this period. Students in states where public tuition increased the most were considerably more likely to enroll in a public two-year college than their counterparts in states that adopted more modest increases. We explore heterogeneity in this pattern of substitution between institutions of varying selectivity and control and for students in policy-relevant socio-demographic subgroups, including those in different parts of the twelfth-grade achievement distribution. Generally, large tuition increases at public four-year colleges have weakened the propensity of high school graduates to enroll in such institutions in their state, and increased their likelihood of enrollment in less prestigious in-state public colleges, out-of-state public institutions, or private universities. These effects are most pronounced among students from families of low socioeconomic status, and nonelite students who perform below the 90th percentile on twelfth-grade math tests.

Has access to selective postsecondary schools expanded or contracted? Evaluating this question has proven a difficult task because data are limited, particularly with regard to family income. We complement previous work and provide a replicable model of institutional analysis. This paper presents a detailed, quantitative assessment of admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an elite flagship public university—the type that is supposed to offer excellent opportunities to students from all backgrounds. We use an innovative measure of family income to compare applicant, admissions, and enrollment trends for low-income and minority students from 1972 to 2007. The unique aspects of this study include the more reliable measure of income and the ability to look at the full process from applications, admissions, and matriculations (demand and supply), not generally available in national datasets.