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Abstract

This thesis consists of five essays in environmental macroeconomics. My first single-authored chapter "Can Adjustment Costs in Research Derail the Transition to Green Growth?" is a theoretical contribution, where I show that adjustment costs materially raise the risk of reaching an environmental disaster, although policy makers can mitigate these risks. The paper is currently under consideration at "Environmental and Resource Economics". My second and third co-authored chapters "Heard the News? Environmental Policy and Clean Investment" and "Does Environmental Policy Uncertainty Hinder Investments Towards a Low-Carbon Economy?" develop novel news-based indices of US environmental policy (EnvP) and policy uncertainty (EnvPU) based on text mining techniques. Our results are consistent with the notion that while EnvP is crucial in facilitating the low-carbon transition, EnvPU sabotages these efforts through the back door. The EnvP (EnvPU) paper is an R&R at the "Journal of Public Economics" (an NBER Working Paper). My fourth single-authored chapter "Does Environmental Policy Uncertainty Deter Clean-Tech FDI?" shows that cleantech foreign direct investment (FDI) in the US reacts to EnvP(U) in a qualitatively similar manner as the domestic investment in the previous chapter, with stronger effects for foreign than for domestic investors. This paper is still work-in-progress. My final co-authored chapter "Why Some Don't Belong --- The Distributional Effects of Natural Disasters" shows that within-country income inequality tends to increase significantly following severe and repeated severe disasters in a large international sample. This paper is forthcoming as an IMF Working Paper.

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