Quantifying the effects of energy transitions on the U.S. labor market and implications for the Inflation Reduction Act

Grant description:

Due to a lack of longitudinal, nationwide labor market data, evaluations of the impacts of energy communities remain unexplored. The authors propose a quasi-experimental approach using the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau to evaluate labor market outcomes in energy communities as defined by the Inflation Reduction Act. The authors will use the definition of an energy community to define an area “treated” by the law and then estimate labor market outcomes in these treated areas versus untreated areas. Based on this treatment definition, they will use a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of the IRA tax credits to explore the heterogeneous impacts across worker demographic characteristics, geographic factors, and structural factors, such as local economies and energy mixes.