February 2022

1. Brown Bag Lunch

   Effects of a transition for environmental sustainability on labour and trade: literature review

   The working paper reviews the extant theoretical and empirical literature on the environment, labour, and trade. It gives an overview of the evidence of the impacts of climatic change on labour and trade, of the concept of a green economy, environmental policy measures and introduces some questions arising from the calls for a ‘just transition’. It reviews theoretical literature on the channels through which policies promoting an environmental transition affect labour and trade, and which empirical strategies are commonly used to study this relationship. It also provides an overview of existing empirical evidence on the relationship between labour and environmental transitions, trade and environmental transitions, and labour, trade and the environment. Finally, it identifies the gaps in the literature and concludes.