Economics of climate change and green employment: a general equilibrium investigation for Turkey

Abstract

This paper quests for the intrinsic complementarities among environmental pollution abatement, induced technological innovation to combat human-induced climate change, targeted expansions for green employment, and enhanced welfare through gains in private income. Utilizing data from the Turkish economy, we implement an applied general equilibrium model to study the synergies between environmental abatement instruments and policies towards sustaining green jobs. Our results are indicative that by a proper mix of environmental taxation and technological and institutional innovations, Turkey can serve as an example for a host of developing countries in setting the stage for a pro-employment and eco-friendly, sustained growth path. We further show that for the successful implementation of a carbon emissions mitigation strategy, elimination of the burden of existing labor taxes and factor market distortions are crucial. Our analysis suggests that complemented with a strategy of substitution of environmental taxes against the existing distortionary labor taxes, costs abatement on domestic income and employment could be negligible.