Open Access

Jakub Rybicki

• The extent and complexity of climate change can hardly be described in a few words. However, for a large part of the scientific community, one thing is certain: the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly. Yet, we are still emitting too much compared to the economically optimal path. This thesis studies the political economy of climate change and contains three essays to understand this so-called emission gap. Each chapter covers different parts of the political economy of climate change. In Chapter 2, we study the influence of migration on mitigation from a political economy perspective. We find a problematic mechanism that may lead to a socially inefficient mitigation level and a trapped population. Chapter 3 investigates the political economy of the German Climate Package and the commuting allowance. In contrast to Chapter 2, in Chapter 3, we identify a mechanism that allows the government to implement a higher mitigation level in the form of a carbon tax in theThe extent and complexity of climate change can hardly be described in a few words. However, for a large part of the scientific community, one thing is certain: the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly. Yet, we are still emitting too much compared to the economically optimal path. This thesis studies the political economy of climate change and contains three essays to understand this so-called emission gap. Each chapter covers different parts of the political economy of climate change. In Chapter 2, we study the influence of migration on mitigation from a political economy perspective. We find a problematic mechanism that may lead to a socially inefficient mitigation level and a trapped population. Chapter 3 investigates the political economy of the German Climate Package and the commuting allowance. In contrast to Chapter 2, in Chapter 3, we identify a mechanism that allows the government to implement a higher mitigation level in the form of a carbon tax in the transport sector. Finally, in Chapter 4, we study the influence of weather on climate change concerns. One may ask how this is related to the political economy of climate change. However, we argue that climate change concerns can be seen as a proxy for the support of protection measures. If someone is very concerned about the consequences of climate change, it is more likely that he will support stricter climate protection laws. Compared to Chapters 2 and 3, where we use a partial equilibrium model within a political economy framework, in Chapter 4, we use German survey data to examine this question empirically.…