Environmental policies and climate neutral living may put a heavy burden on low-income households, who are likely to spend a larger share of their income on various climate taxes and fees. Is it possible to counter-balance such potential regressive effects of environmental taxes via social policy? Will climate taxes increase inequality and fail to reach high political support in absence of an effective system of income redistribution? In my PhD studies, I will analyze the distributive consequences of the green welfare state, and explore its effects on inequality and political support.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Social sustainability in the decarbonized welfare state: Social policy as a buffer against poverty related to environmental taxes

  2025. Kenneth Nelson, Arvid Lindh, Pär Dalén. Global Social Policy 25 (1), 36-63

  Article

  Decarbonization, environmental protection, and sustainable development are more topical than ever. Despite long-standing debates about the regressive profile of environmental taxes, the welfare state’s role in buffering adverse distributive impacts of climate policy is largely unexplored. We examine if social policy shields households from falling into poverty due to environmental taxes tied to consumption. We specifically focus on the importance of income replacement in social insurance and social assistance. To enable detailed assessments of the distributive outcomes of environmental policy, we impute environmental taxes into the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). Our comparative analysis of 26 European countries indicates that the welfare state protects households from relative income poverty due to environmental taxes. Moreover, comparisons between educational groups suggest that both social insurance and social assistance play different yet complementary roles in reducing socio-economic gradients in poverty related to environmental taxes.

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• Social Insurance Entitlements dataset (SIED) 2000–2023 [Data set]

  2024. Kenneth Nelson (et al.).

  Report

  Read more about Social Insurance Entitlements dataset (SIED) 2000–2023 [Data set]

• The Share of Carbon Emissions by the Non-Rich and Support for Higher Environmental Taxes in Cross-National and Longitudinal Perspective

  2024. Pär Dalén. International Journal of Sociology 54 (5-6), 510-529

  Article

  This comparative study covering 41 countries explores whether the distribution of national carbon emissions shapes the public willingness to pay higher environmental taxes and if this relationship is moderated by the quality of government. Using multilevel regression models, it draws on data from all four waves of the International Social Survey Programme’s Environment modules (1993–2020), combined with carbon emissions data from the World Inequality Database. Cross-sectional and longitudinal results suggest that the public willingness to pay additional taxes is lower in contexts where the non-rich are responsible for a larger or increasing share of national carbon emissions, particularly in contexts with low or declining quality of government. It is concluded that the distribution of emissions may impact public support for environmental taxes, but that well-functioning government institutions can mitigate negative public backlash linked to the often-perceived regressive character of these taxes.

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Show all publications by Pär Dalén at Stockholm University