Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 136, January 2020, 111047
Energy Policy

Modelling strategy and net employment effects of renewable energy and energy efficiency: A meta-regression

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111047Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • The reported size on net employment effects of renewable energy depend on the methodology that is applied.

  • The direct and indirect employment effects are generally positive, the induced effects can be either positive or negative.

  • Policymakers have to be cautious when drawing conclusions regarding net employment creation based on a single study.

  • Results may be sensitive to model specification, and studies may not consider all potential effects of a transition.

Abstract

By conducting a meta-analysis of the empirical literature on the net employment effects of renewable energy, we explore the extent to which the reported net employment effects are driven by the applied methodology. We find that the reported conclusions on net employment effects are to a large extent driven by the methodology that is applied, where computable general equilibrium (CGE) and I/O methods that include induced effects and studies that consider only the near future in their study period (up to 2020) are generally less optimistic about net employment creation in the wake of the energy transition. In addition, we found that policy reports have a greater tendency to report a positive net employment effect than academic studies.

Keywords

Renewable energy
Net employment
Meta-analysis
Circular economy

Cited by (0)