Social Unrest and Environmental Performance

Mahdi Fawaz and Donatella Gatti
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Mahdi Fawaz: Université Sorbonne Paris Nord

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Abstract: There is a growing consensus that policies such as carbon taxes are needed to improve environmental performance. We propose a theoretical framework and a model to examine how environmental concerns determine political support for carbon taxation and the incentives for the poor to revolt, replace the incumbent government, and achieve a fairer distribution of income. Our main result is that the incentive to revolt is an inverted U-shaped function of environmental performance. On the empirical side, we construct a normalized Social Unrest Index (SUI) based on riots and battles data from the ACLED database. Then, we analyze the determinants of SUI in a panel of 211 countries between 1997 and 2022 including a quadratic term of the EPI index (Yale University). We find an inverted U-shaped relationship that is robust in all the specifications tested. In autocratic regimes, as EPI rises from 30% to 40%, SUI predicted average almost doubles from 12.8% to 20.4%, while it falls at higher EPI levels. Our results have important policy implications.

Date: 2025-05-02
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Working Paper: Social Unrest and Environmental Performance (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cepnwp:hal-05021482

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5200178

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