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Infrastructure investment may reshape economic activities. In this article, I examine the distributional impacts of high-speed rail upgrades in China, which have improved passengers’ access to high-speed train services in the city nodes but have left the peripheral counties along the upgraded railway lines bypassed by the services. By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in whether counties were affected by this project, my analysis suggests that the affected counties on the upgraded railway lines experienced reductions in GDP and GDP per capita following the upgrade, which was largely driven by the concurrent drop in fixed asset investments. This article provides the first empirical evidence on how transportation costs of people affect urban peripheral patterns.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, started in the late 1990s in Latin America, have become the antipoverty program of choice in many developing countries in the region and beyond. This paper reviews the literature on their long-term impacts on human capital and related outcomes observed after children have reached a later stage of their life cycle, focusing on two life-cycle transitions. The first includes children exposed to CCTs in utero or during early childhood who have reached school ages. The second includes children exposed to CCTs during school ages who have reached young adulthood. Most studies find positive long-term effects on schooling, but fewer find positive impacts on cognitive skills, learning, or socio-emotional skills. Impacts on employment and earnings are mixed, possibly because former beneficiaries were often still too young. A number of studies find estimates that are not statistically different from zero, but for which it is often not possible to be confident that this is due to an actual lack of impact rather than to the methodological challenges facing all long-term evaluations. Developing further opportunities for analyses with rigorous identification strategies for the measurement of long-term impacts should be high on the research agenda. As original beneficiaries age, this should also be increasingly possible, and indeed important before concluding whether or not CCTs lead to sustainable poverty reduction.

Understanding the distributional impacts of market-based climate policies is crucial to design economically efficient climate change mitigation policies that are socially acceptable and avoid adverse impacts on the poor. Empirical studies that examine the distributional impacts of carbon pricing and fossil fuel subsidy reforms in different countries arrive at ambiguous results. To systematically determine the sources of variation between these outcomes, we apply an ordered probit meta-analysis framework. Based on a comprehensive, systematic and transparent screening of the literature, our sample comprises 53 empirical studies containing 183 effects in 39 countries. Results indicate a significantly increased likelihood of progressive distributional outcomes for studies on lower income countries and transport sector policies. The same applies to study designs that consider indirect effects, demand-side adjustments of consumers or lifetime income proxies.

This paper reviews the recent empirical evidence on privatization in developing countries, with particular emphasis on new areas of research such as the distributional impacts of privatization. Overall, the literature now reflects a more cautious and nuanced evaluation of privatization. Thus, private ownership alone is no longer argued to automatically generate economic gains in developing economies; pre-conditions (especially the regulatory infrastructure) and an appropriate process of privatization are important for attaining a positive impact. These comprise a list which is often challenging in developing countries: well-designed and sequenced reforms; the implementation of complementary policies; the creation of regulatory capacity; attention to poverty and social impacts; and strong public communication. Even so, the studies do identify the scope for efficiency-enhancing privatization that also promotes equity in developing countries.

Scaling up electric vehicles (EVs) provides an avenue to mitigate both carbon emissions and air pollution from road transport. The benefits of EV adoption for climate, air quality, and health have been widely documented. Yet, evidence on the distribution of these impacts has not been systematically reviewed, despite its central importance to ensure a just and equitable transition. Here, we perform a systematic review of recent EV studies that have examined the spatial distribution of the emissions, air pollution, and health impacts, as an important aspect of the equity implications. Using the Context-Interventions-Mechanisms-Outcome framework with a two-step search strategy, we narrowed down to 47 papers that met our inclusion criteria for detailed review and synthesis. We identified two key factors that have been found to influence spatial distributions. First, the cross-sectoral linkages may result in unintended impacts elsewhere. For instance, the generation of electricity to charge EVs, and the production of batteries and other materials to manufacture EVs could increase the emissions and pollution in locations other than where EVs are adopted. Second, since air pollution and health are local issues, additional location-specific factors may play a role in determining the spatial distribution, such as the wind transport of pollution, and the size and vulnerability of the exposed populations. Based on our synthesis of existing evidence, we highlight two important areas for further research: (1) fine-scale pollution and health impact assessment to better characterize exposure and health disparities across regions and population groups; and (2) a systematic representation of the EV value chain that captures the linkages between the transport, power and manufacturing sectors as well as the regionally-varying activities and impacts.

The impact of a transition to a net-zero economy on the residential energy sector across diverse income groups in the US remains uncertain. Here, we employ an integrated human-Earth system model, incorporating an expanded set of ten income groups in the residential energy sector, to examine the distributional impacts of long-term decarbonization scenarios on residential energy security at the state level through 2050. We use multiple metrics of energy security, including energy burden, energy satiation gap, and the distribution of energy service across income groups. Our findings show that the net-zero decarbonization scenarios affect residential energy security differently across income groups, with low-to-mid-income groups experiencing larger negative impacts on the dimensions studied here. Comparatively, climate change impact on residential energy security is minor through 2050 based on our model outcomes. Specifically, the net-zero decarbonization scenarios lead to increased energy burden across all income groups and states in 2050, where the lowest (highest) income group in each state shows an average of 0.6 (0.2) percentage point increase in energy burden, relative to the business-as-usual in 2050. The distribution of energy service consumption across income groups is also slightly more skewed under these scenarios. As incomes grow across all deciles in the future, residential energy security generally improves through 2050. Targeted interventions could mitigate the disproportionate impacts that some groups could incur under a transition to a net-zero economy.

The impact of a transition to a net-zero economy on the residential energy sector across diverse income groups in the US remains uncertain. Here, we employ an integrated human-Earth system model, incorporating an expanded set of ten income groups in the residential energy sector, to examine the distributional impacts of long-term decarbonization scenarios on residential energy security at the state level through 2050. We use multiple metrics of energy security, including energy burden, energy satiation gap, and the distribution of energy service across income groups. Our findings show that the net-zero decarbonization scenarios affect residential energy security differently across income groups, with low-to-mid-income groups experiencing larger negative impacts on the dimensions studied here. Comparatively, climate change impact on residential energy security is minor through 2050 based on our model outcomes. Specifically, the net-zero decarbonization scenarios lead to increased energy burden across all income groups and states in 2050, where the lowest (highest) income group in each state shows an average of 0.6 (0.2) percentage point increase in energy burden, relative to the business-as-usual in 2050. The distribution of energy service consumption across income groups is also slightly more skewed under these scenarios. As incomes grow across all deciles in the future, residential energy security generally improves through 2050. Targeted interventions could mitigate the disproportionate impacts that some groups could incur under a transition to a net-zero economy.

This IEG evaluation, requested by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, represents the first independent evaluation of the PSIA experience. The evaluation finds that:. • The PSIA approach has appropriately emphasized the importance of assessing the distributional impact of policy actions, understanding institutional and political constraints to development, and building domestic ownership for reforms. • PSIAs have not always explicitly stated their operational objectives (i.e., informing country policies, informing Bank operations, and/or contributing to country capacity). • PSIAs have had limited ownership by Bank staff and managers and have often not been effectively integrated into country assistance programs. • Quality assurance and Monitoring and Evaluation of the overall effectiveness of PSIAs have been weak. The evaluation recommends that the World Bank:. • Ensure that Bank staff understand what the PSIA approach is and when to use it. • Clarify the operational objectives of each PSIA and tailor the approach and timeline to those objectives. • Improve integration of the PSIA into the Bank’s country assistance program by requiring that all earmarked funding for PSIAs be matched by a substantial contribution from the country unit budgets. • Strengthen PSIA effectiveness through enhanced quality assurance.

As nations struggle to restart their economy after COVID-19 lockdowns, calls to include green investments in a pandemic-related stimulus are growing. Yet little research provides evidence of the effectiveness of a green stimulus. We begin by summarizing recent research on the effectiveness of the green portion of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on employment growth. Green investments are most effective in communities whose workers have the appropriate “green” skills. We then provide new evidence on the skills requirements of both green and brown occupations, as well as from occupations at risk of job losses due to COVID-19, to illustrate which workers are most likely to benefit from a pandemic-related green stimulus. We find similarities between some energy sector workers and green jobs, but a poor match between green jobs and occupations at risk due to COVID-19. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence on the potential for job training programs to help ease the transition to a green economy.

Abstract As the adverse effects of climate change intensify, numerous countries are making several efforts to reduce their carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. One of the widely adopted strategies is the implementation of a carbon tax. This study analyzed the potential impact of a carbon tax on fuel usage on sectoral price changes and distributional impacts on households’ living expenses. Three types of simulations were employed: levying the tax only on the electricity sector, the top-10 emitter sectors, and all sectors. Using the Indonesian Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) 2015, as well as the price-multiplier matrix in the simulations, the results show that, of all production sectors, the carbon tax had the most substantial impact on the electricity sector, followed by energy-intensive sectors and rail transportation. We found that the impact of the carbon tax is more detrimental to urban households than rural households. In addition, regressiveness is stronger in urban households than in rural households. Different tax scenarios have varying impacts. Taxing all sectors leads to significant price increases across all sectors and higher living and labor costs for all groups. Government decisions on emissions taxes should carefully consider their economic effects on essential industries and vulnerable populations.