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.

Keywords : Environmental performance, Social Unrest, Carbon Tax, Redistribution, Democracy,
Autocracy
JEL codes : H23, 013, 044, P18, P43, Q34, Q56, Q 58

Lien vers HAL : https://hal.science/hal-05021482v1