Development and Environmental Economics Platform
The Development and Environmental Economics Platform examines how environmental change and public policy shape sustainable development. It focuses on inequality, climate risks, poverty reduction policies, and access to resources across low-, middle-, and high-income countries.
About
Economic and environmental challenges are closely connected. The platform studies how climate and development policies affect behavior, well-being, and long-term growth across the world.
Research within this platform aims to understand who is most affected by environmental change and policy decisions. The platform looks at issues such as carbon pricing, energy policy, and how information about environmental impacts shape consumer choices and public attitudes in high-income countries, including Sweden. Other examples of research within the platform include how climate risks disproportionately impact low-income populations, and how social interventions in areas such as health, education, and labor markets can improve resilience in low-income countries.
The platform uses rigorous methods, such as randomized controlled trials and large-scale data analysis, to identify effective policies and interventions in practice. By combining insights from development and environmental economics, the research aims to inform policies that promote both social and environmental sustainability and provide guidance for governments and international organizations.
Examples of research questions
- How do climate policies, such as carbon taxes, affect different income groups?
- Which policies and interventions are most effective at reducing poverty while supporting environmental sustainability?
- How can access to better healthcare and education improve the life of people in low-income countries?
Platform Director
Carl Bennet & Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Professor in Economics
Department of Economics
Stockholm School of Economics
Research projects
Below you will find a selection of research projects from the Development and Environmental Economics Platform. They focus on evaluating climate, environmental, and poverty reduction policies across diverse country contexts, with the aim of generating evidence on what works and informing sustainable and equitable policy solutions.
Ongoing projects
Facing the hard truth: Evidence from climate change ignorance
HoSS researcher:
- Pamela Campa, Associate Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Ferenc Szucs, Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Stockholm University
Public ignorance around climate change remains high in many countries. In this paper, we show that information avoidance aimed at protecting identity contributes to explaining climate ignorance. Exploiting mass-layoffs of coal miners in the US we find that climate ignorance shrinks less over time in counties affected by the layoffs as compared to other coal-mining counties. Comparing layoffs from coal and metal mines we also show that the layoff impact on climate ignorance is specific to coal communities. Measures aimed at helping the labor-market transition of laid-off workers do not appear to mitigate the impact. Our results suggest that attention should be paid to political developments in communities negatively affected by the green transition to avoid costly backlash from climate policies.
This project is partially funded by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.
Long-run follow-up of a promising at-scale early childhood development program in Bangladesh
HoSS researcher:
- Akib Khan, Postdoctoral Fellow, SSE
Main project stakeholder:
- Save the Children, Bangladesh
This project undertakes a 10-year follow-up of a large-scale cluster-randomized trial of a low-cost home-visiting intervention integrated into Bangladesh’s existing nutrition program. Community health workers delivered the intervention to over 18,000 children aged 3–18 months across three divisions. Both original participants (now aged 11–13), their siblings, and a sample of non-targeted children are tracked to capture spillovers. Outcomes will combine administrative data on national exam performance with direct measures of cognition, socio-emotional skills, anthropometrics, and aspirations, alongside parent surveys on beliefs and investments.
This follow-up assesses the long-term efficacy, equity, and cost-effectiveness of scalable early childhood interventions in resource-constrained settings.
Project start date: Summer 2026
Veils of change: The anatomy of social transformation in post-protest Iran
HoSS researcher:
- Avenia Ghazarian, PhD Student, SSE
This project examines whether public protests, especially under authoritarian regimes, can serve as a trigger for social and behavioral change by reshaping social norms. It studies Iran’s “Women, Life, Freedom” movement of September 2022 to January 2023, which revealed deep opposition to the hijab law and its enforcement on women. Although the movement was met with a brutal crackdown and the legal framework surrounding compulsory veiling remained unchanged, it may nevertheless have shifted social norms by revealing the breadth and intensity of public support for change. The research investigates three dimensions of change in the movement’s aftermath: (i) women’s compliance with the hijab law, (ii) women’s status and bargaining power within the household, and (iii) women’s labor market outcomes.
Project start date: Spring 2024
Understanding and improving social inclusion in Indian private schools
HoSS researcher:
- Abhijeet Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- J-PAL South Asia, Indus Action
The EDINCLUSION project focuses on understanding and improving school integration in India, which is the world’s largest school system and among the most unequal. The focus is on India’s landmark school integration policy under the Right to Education Act 2009, which mandates that 25% of places in private schools should be reserved for students from disadvantaged economic and caste backgrounds.
There are three main work streams: (a) an assessment of the effects on current beneficiaries; (b) identifying approaches to encouraging applications from poorer eligible students; and (c) a systematic understanding of private school markets related to parental choice and to heterogeneity in school outcomes in the private sector.
The results will: (a) generate much-needed evidence on the effectiveness of the largest school integration program in world, (b) identify ways to improve its effectiveness and (c) generate fundamental insights on the functioning of urban school markets in developing countries and the take-up of social policy.
Project dates: February 2023 – January 2028
This project is funded by the European Research Council.
Incentivizing textbooks for self-study: Experimental evidence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
HoSS researcher:
- Anders Olofsgård, Associate Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Jean-Benoit Falisse, Assistant Professor, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Futures Institute & Centre of African Studies
- Marieke Huysentruyt, Assistant Professor, HEC Paris
Using a randomized field experiment in South Kivu, this project studies the impact of a simple “textbooks for self-study” incentive scheme targeting student achievement in primary schools. Students in treatment schools scored 0.26σ higher on French tests and better but not significantly so in math. They were also seven per cent more likely to pass the high-stakes national exam and those who passed obtained 0.30σ higher scores. The largest impact was found in schools with lower teaching-efficacy and for lower-ability students. The results demonstrate that incentives-centered programs designed to intensify and diversify students’ use of existing school resources can improve student achievement.
This project is carried out in collaboration with the World Bank through the Results in Education for All Children (REACH) program, and with Cordaid, a Dutch NGO operating in DRC.
From registration to representation: Mobilising women voters and politicians in India
HoSS researchers:
- Jonathan Lehne, Assistant Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
- Pamela Campa, Associate Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
- Maiting Zhuang, Assistant Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
In almost all countries women are underrepresented among politicians; in some, they are also underrepresented among voters. For example, there are over 20 million women missing from the electoral rolls in India. This project evaluates whether female politicians motivate women to participate in politics by (i) registering to vote (ii) turning out for elections and (iii) running for office themselves. Individual level data on 150 million voter registrations and over 500,000 candidates over multiple rounds of village and state elections are used to study this question.
Completed projects
The cost of air pollution for workers and firms
HoSS researcher:
- Marion Leroutier, Assistant Professor, CREST, ENSAE, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Hélène Olivier, Paris School of Economics and CNRS
Poor air quality negatively affects physical health and cognitive function, but little is known about how air pollution’s negative effects on individuals translate into costs for firms. This project investigated how fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) affects firms’ sales in the context of France, and the underlying mechanisms. It leveraged unique administrative data providing information on the sick leave status of 350 000 workers and the sales of the 180 000 firms that employ them, every month between 2009 and 2015. The research found that a 10% increase in monthly PM2.5 reduces monthly sales in manufacturing, construction and professional services by between 0.4% and 0.8%, and that it increases the number of workers on sick leave by 1%.
The findings suggest that air pollution affects firms’ performance not only through an increase in staff absenteeism, but also through a decrease in productivity and potentially a decrease in demand. The research team estimates that reducing air pollution in line with WHO guidelines would have avoided sales losses and sick leave worth €6 billion per year, with 98% of the benefits linked to avoided sales losses.
Project dates: 2021–2024
This project was partially funded by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.
Interventions to reduce consumers’ carbon footprint
HoSS researchers:
- Julius Andersson, Assistant Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
- Pamela Campa, Associate Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
Main project stakeholders:
- Doconomy (Sweden)
- Flowe (Italy)
This research project was a collaboration between HoSS, the Swedish impact tech company Doconomy, and the Italian bank Flowe. The researchers set out to answer whether consumers change their consumption behavior if they: (1) are regularly informed about the carbon footprint of their purchases; (2) are offered the opportunity to offset their carbon emissions; (3) are given information about climate change. Services offering carbon calculators are proliferating, but little is known about how effective they are at inducing behavioural changes. Information on one’s environmental impact may increase awareness and produce more informed consumption choices, but this ultimately depends on whether consumers check and understand the information, are aware of ways to reduce their emissions, and are concerned about their own carbon footprint.
Project start date: Summer 2021
This project was partially funded by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.
(Do not) hold your breath! Air pollution and cognitive abilities in a developing context
HoSS researcher:
- Erik Merkus, Trade Policy Adviser, National Board of Trade Sweden
High-stakes examinations are an important part in the human capital accumulation process of students, as it partly determines their access to higher education. This project exploited exogenous variation in exposure to air pollution on test days of these high-stake examinations and found that students faced with higher levels of air pollution perform worse, potentially affecting their lifetime human capital.
This project was partially funded by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.
The distributional effects of a carbon tax: The role of income inequality
HoSS researcher:
- Julius Andersson, Assistant Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Giles Atkinson, London School of Economics
This project addresses the question of the distributional burden of a carbon tax. It shows that not only the income measure – annual or lifetime – matters for the incidence of the tax, but also the underlying distribution of income. The Swedish carbon tax on transport fuel is regressive between 1999-2012 when measured against annual income, but progressive when using lifetime income. The overall trend, however, is toward an increase in regressivity, which is highly correlated with a rise in income inequality. Analysis of the determinants of distributional effects lends support to the hypothesis that, for necessities – goods with an income elasticity below one– rising income inequality increases the regressivity of a consumption tax. To mitigate climate change, a carbon tax should be applied to goods that typically are necessities: transport fuel, food, heating, and electricity. Carbon taxation will thus likely be regressive in high-income countries, the more so the more unequal the distribution of income.
This project received support from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.
Economic determinants of violence in the home: The case of Sweden during COVID-19
HoSS researcher:
- Maria Perrotta Berlin, Assistant Professor, Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Manne Gerell, Malmö University
The political reaction to the spread of COVID-19 has led, in many countries, to dramatic and abrupt changes in many dimensions that have been previously associated with conflicts and violence within households: lockdowns and confinement; the economic shock following the crisis; the labor market impacts; associated financial and psychological stress. Given well-documented gender differences in all these dimensions, these effects come with asymmetric impacts for men and women. Together with the increased time spent on childcare and household chores, due to the social distancing, this is likely to upset the balance of “normal times” division of labor, leading to conflicts. This project studied the special case of Sweden.
Weather shocks, infant mortality, and adaptation: Experimental evidence from Uganda
HoSS researcher:
- Martina Björkman Nyqvist, Professor, Department of Economics, SSE
Other researchers and collaborators:
- Andrea Guariso, University of Milan-Bicocca
- Jakob Svensson, Stockholm University
- Tillmann von Carnap-Bornheim, University of Oslo
This project studied how strengthening community healthcare systems can help populations adapt to climate change. Combining experimental variation in healthcare access from a randomized trial with natural variation in rainfall, the research examines how extreme weather affects infant mortality in a low-income setting. The findings show that low rainfall increases the risk of infant death, but access to community healthcare substantially mitigates this effect. Ongoing work uses these estimates together with climate projections to assess the potential of health system investments as an effective adaptation strategy.
This project was funded by the Children Investment Fund Foundation, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser, and Mistra Foundation.
