Luis Diaz-Serrano

Background: The environmental impact of recessions has been widely debated. While recessions are known to reduce CO2 emissions and material use, they may also deprioritise environmental issues and policies. Prior research has focused on short-term effects, overlooking cumulative impacts. Understanding the cumulative impact of recessions on environmental variables is crucial, especially given the link between these variables and human health.Methods: We conduct a novel panel data regression analysis to estimate the impact of recessions on the growth rates of CO2 emissions and material extraction, as well as measures of environmental innovation and renewable energy deployment. We then construct counterfactual models to estimate global emissions and extraction in the absence of recessions. For comparison, we also construct a counterfactual scenario that quantifies the impact of modern renewables and nuclear energy sources. Our analysis spans 135 countries and 1378 country–recession years, covering 96.1% of global CO2 emissions (1950–2022) and 98.3% of material extraction (1970–2022). Findings: We find that recessions significantly reduce CO2 emissions and material extraction, with little impact on environmental innovation or renewable energy deployment. In general, emissions and extraction do not rebound to their previous trend following recessions, with the result that — on average — recessions lead to a permanent reduction in environmental pressure. Without recessions, cumulative global CO2 emissions would be 15–22% (228–325 Gt) higher, and cumulative material extraction would be 13–19% (391–579 Gt) higher. The CO2 emissions avoided by recessions are 27% larger than the total emissions saved by all modern renewables plus nuclear energy. Without recessions, global GDP would be 22% higher, but the 1.5 °C carbon budget would already have been exceeded. Interpretation: Our findings suggest that recessions have had substantial and lasting environmental benefits. Recessions reduce environmental pressure primarily by curbing economic activity, but they also tend to accelerate structural changes in the economy, leading to improvements in energy and carbon intensity. Our results highlight the need for deliberate policies that reduce environmental pressure without the social costs of economic crises. We propose two complementary approaches: (1) leveraging recessions to implement green policy, and (2) pursuing post-growth strategies that prioritise wellbeing and sustainability over GDP growth. To protect planetary health, strong action that combines both sufficiency (reducing consumption) and efficiency (improving provisioning systems) is urgently needed.

Single parenthood is on the rise worldwide. While acceptance of single-parent households is increasing, some authors point out that single-parent families still suffer from negative societal attitudes compared to heterosexual two-parent families, while also being among the most vulnerable groups of society. Motivated by these findings, we study whether private and state-dependent private schools in Catalonia (Spain) are more reluctant to interact with single parents than with heterosexual couples. We conduct a field experiment during the children’s pre-registration period. We create three types of fictitious families (heterosexual couple, single mother, and single father) and send e-mails to schools in which the family structure is made explicit. Our results indicate that schools are more prone to interact with single parents than with heterosexual couples.

This paper studies the impact of different types of job-to-job transitions (from salaried employment to self-employment, from self-employment to salaried employment, and within salaried employment) on job satisfaction. Considering the three types of job transition, allows us to separate the pure mobility effect from the type of employment effect. We design an identification strategy based on the diff-in-diff approach. This is possible because our panel data allow us to compare the same individuals before and after job-to-job transitions occur. Our findings indicate that individuals who move from salaried employment to self-employment increase their overall job satisfaction more than workers who carry out other types of job transitions, while the impact of job changes on satisfaction in other job domains is mixed. We also find heterogeneous interactive effects of previous unemployment spells and self-perceived skill mismatch with job transitions depending on the type of transition. While skill mismatch is more important in the transition from salaried employment to self-employment, previous unemployment is more important for job changes within salaried employment.

The study aims to test the effectiveness of the Ghana Microfinance Policy of 2006 set up to support women and youth through access to credit. Our results show that, after controlling for a large number of variables, female and young entrepreneurs are less likely to be rationed in the access to microcredit and that this is largely determined by the differential treatment that they receive from microfinance institutions. Our analysis using regression decomposition techniques indicates that positive discrimination in favour of women and youth exists. Surprisingly, our results show that government microfinance policy accounts for the most severe rationing behaviour towards the targeted groups by the law.

The literature on how the ideology of political parties in power correlates with climate policy outcomes is abundant, but there is no similar literature for the individual characteristics of government leaders. This assessment is the first study of its kind, building on a dataset of government leaders of OECD countries for the period 1992–2017. We find that national presidents or prime ministers with a professional background in business are strongly correlated with bad climate mitigation outcomes. In particular, higher emissions and lower renewable energy deployment are more likely to occur during the tenure of former business people. Our results suggest that voters and pressure groups should pay attention to candidates’ professional backgrounds, in addition to their party’s ideology.

This paper provides one of the first testsof adaptation tothe complete set ofresidential transitions. We use long-run SOEP panel data and consider the impact of all housing transitions, whether or not they involvea change in housing tenureor geographical movement, on both life satisfaction and housing satisfaction. Controlling for individual characteristics and housing quality, some residential transitionsaffect life satisfactiononly little, while all transitions have a significant effect on housing satisfaction. This latter is particularly large for renters who become homeowners and move geographically,and for renters who move without changing tenure status. Regarding housing satisfaction, we find very little evidence of adaptation even after five years. Losing homeowner status is the only transition that produces lower housing satisfaction, and here the effect seems to become even more negative over time.