To foster research into the nature and implications of climate change, IZA has established an award for “Innovative Research in the Economics of Climate Change” (IRECC) given for the two best topical IZA Discussion Papers of the previous year. Worth 10,000 euros, the IRECC Award recognizes important new insights into the broader, often underestimated consequences of climate change and the effects of environmental policies on society and the labor market.
These two papers have been selected for the 2022 IRECC Award:
- “Temperature, Workplace Safety, and Labor Market Inequality” (IZA DP No. 14560) by Jisung Park, Nora Pankratz and Patrick Behrer illustrates that rising temperatures increase the risk of work injuries at both outdoor and indoor workplaces. Since low-wage earners are disproportionately affected, this may also exacerbate income inequality. This is a prime example of unexpected secondary effects of climate change that deserve further investigation. Assessing the welfare cost of climate change is only at the beginning and needs a lot of further development. [more about this paper]
- “Fighting Climate Change: The Role of Norms, Preferences, and Moral Values” (IZA DP 14518) by Peter Andre, Teodora Boneva, Felix Chopra, Armin Falk addresses the role of social norms, individual preferences, and moral views in fighting climate change. The remarkable key finding of this experimental study: Many people contribute little to climate protection because they underestimate the willingness of others to fight global warming. Providing information on prevalent climate norms raises support for climate-friendly policies, particularly among climate-change skeptics. Without a doubt, these are highly relevant findings for policy making. [more about this paper]
The inaugural IRECC winners “represent the best of modern applied-economics research,” according to the award committee made up of Susana Ferreira (University of Georgia), Andrew Oswald (committee chair; IZA and University of Warwick) and Hilmar Schneider (CEO of IZA).
All climate-related IZA discussion papers submitted in 2022 will qualify for the second IRECC award, to be given in early 2023.