Conference Agenda

Does the migration of remote workers become a challenge to the sustainability of cities? Between 2019 and 2021, real estate prices in cities with greater tree cover (green cities) increase by an average of 9%, compared to only 3% in non-green cities. Remote working has expanded the traditional criteria for workers' location choices, with environmental quality and its accessibility becoming important factors. This study analyzes the impacts of remote work on the French real estate market in the post Covid era, focusing on how natural amenities influence city selection. Using unique data on cities’ green coverage and remote work, the study's findings confirm the theoretical predictions that post-pandemic remote workers choose greener locations when they relocate. Our analysis subsequently reveals a significant influence of remote worker migration on house price growth in cities offering natural amenities. This trend is mainly attributed to skilled workers relocating to areas with higher environmental quality. We conclude that work-from-home (WFH) exerts upward pressure on housing prices in greener cities, which is symptomatic of an environmental gentrification of these cities, making them less affordable for non-remote workers and thus supporting a double inequality.

Do changes in energy prices impact individuals' attitudes towards the energy transition? Global energy markets are highly interconnected, making them a source of globalization that can impact public policy preferences. Shifts in energy prices due to the energy transition, global supply shocks, or more recently, or other crises (e.g. the invasion of Ukraine) impact household energy expenditures, costs of living and income. A key question is how individuals will react to shifts in energy prices: will this affect environmental concern, the public support of climate and energy policies, or other political attitudes? Which regions and social groups are more likely to be affected and respond more? I study changes in attitudes in the time-frame of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which led to a drastic increase in energy prices. I combine energy price data with geographical variation in exposure and individual-level data on public attitudes to answer this question. The focus in on the EU, which in 2020 imported 57\% of the energy it consumed, 24.4\% coming from Russia.

Many governments have set ambitious climate goals requiring a shift away from fossil fuel intensive industries toward climate neutral jobs. The consequences of this green transition for workers depends on the quality of these jobs, that is, whether green jobs are also good jobs. Identifying the green wage premium is difficult due to the lack of a consensus definition of green jobs and the nonrandom sorting of workers to firms. We build on the literature on firm wage premiums, defining the green wage premium as the employment-weighted average firm wage premium in ``green” relative to a comparison group of non-green, non-dirty jobs. We find a positive and statistically significant green wage premium. The magnitude is sensitive to the definition of green. With the widest definition of green jobs, we estimate a statistically significant wage premium of around 6.5%. Our baseline estimate of the green wage premium is an order of magnitude smaller than the raw gap in wages (10%), indicating a sorting of high-wage workers to green jobs on both observable and unobservable characteristics. Estimated green wage premiums are larger for women and non-college educated workers. For college-educated workers, the green wage premium is close to zero.

Many fish consumers reveal a preference for sustainably sourced seafood in their purchasing decisions. We propose a bioeconomic modeling approach and an empirical strategy, based on a discrete choice experiment, to quantify the resulting effects on fishery dynamics and to derive implications for efficient fishery management. We show that a `consumer stock effect' arises, which stabilizes a fishery under regulated open access, and which decreases catches under economically efficient management. Considering the case of the Western Baltic cod fishery, we find that these effects are of large magnitude.