Climate Change and Inequality: Evidence from the United States
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments: Climate Change and Inequality: Evidence from the United States
The current work has been conducted to empirically examine the effects of climate change on income inequality in the United States. Paper has computed IRFs from the local projections’ method. Authors have empirically shown that there is an immediate temporary positive response in income inequality from rising temperatures within the first year. Differences are also reported in the effects of temperature growth on inequality across different classifications, mainly states with high inequality and low-temperature growth are more susceptible to changes in temperature growth than states with already high-temperature growth and high inequality growth. The abstract provides valuable information about the topic, method, and brief findings while some concluding insights as well as policy implications if integrated here could have been more useful. The objectives are well-spelled out with ample background on the topic and justification. The literature on the subject has been aptly discussed and integrated with proper contextual settings. The choice of selecting Impulse Response Function (IRF) speaks its suitability. To me, one of the major shortcomings arises from a very little scope in terms of findings as there are only about two pages with only two figures. Similarly, the discussion is too terse with little addition in terms of insights and future implications for policy and research. One of the pertinent suggestions on my part would be to move tables in the appendix to main body with some explanation. Another comment concerns the selection of inequality and poverty data as to what are their descriptives as well as source etc. Similarly, a table containing state-wise data on temperature growth etc could facilitate better understanding. The choice of selecting number of college graduates relative to total population needs to be spelled out.
Author Response
- To me, one of the major shortcomings arises from a very little scope in terms of findings as there are only about two pages with only two figures.
Response: We thank the Reviewer for the overall positive assessment and careful reading of the paper. We are thankful for the Reviewer’s constructive comments, which have helped us to considerably improve our paper.
We would like to point out that the current paper was written as a short note rather than a full-fledged paper, and was also submitted as a communication to Sustainability, based on the suggestion from the journal's side. Our paper will need to be evaluated in light of it being a short note.
Following the comments of the reviewers, we have made several important improvements to the paper based on the the comments received below.
- Similarly, the discussion is too terse with little addition in terms of insights and future implications for policy and research.
Response: We acknowledge the reviewer’s comment. We have added discussions related to insights and future implications in the conclusion. (Please see pg.10, lines 326-347).
- One of the pertinent suggestions on my part would be to move tables in the appendix to main body with some explanation.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have moved the Table of Descriptive Statistics into the main body with some explanation (please See pgs.5-6, lines 154-166). We left the definitions in the Appendix because we already provide detailed definitions of data in the main body.
- Another comment concerns the selection of inequality and poverty data as to what are their descriptives as well as source etc.
Response: We have included a more detailed explanation of our inequality measure. (See pg.5, lines 127-134).
- Similarly, a table containing state-wise data on temperature growth etc could facilitate better understanding.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have included a table with state-wise data on the inequality and temperature growth, which provides further motivation for our study. The Table indicates that the average inequality across the states is 0.5 between 1980-2015 highlighting the widening income gap between populations relative to the period 1940-1979. In addition, we observe variation in average temperature growth between the two periods across the states, with some states moving from negative to positive temperature growth and vice versa, suggesting that various states are undergoing dramatic changes in temperatures. (Please see pgs.2-3, lines 52-59).
- The choice of selecting number of college graduates relative to total population needs to be spelled out.
Response: We chose the number of college graduates instead of people with high school diplomas relative to total population because this is a good indicator of quality of human capital. We have also added evidence from the literature that highlights the role of education attainment in reducing inequality. (Please see pg.5, lines 147-153).
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review the present study that deals with an interesting and relevant topic. However, despite the potential relevance of its contributions, I believe that it presents some issues that need to be tackled. In the following, you can find some suggestions and comments that could be useful in improving the contributions of the study.
In the introduction, contributions of the study should be explicitly identified and briefly elaborated.
What is shown on the horizontal and vertical axes on Figures 1 and 2? If time is not on a horizontal axis, how do you distinguish between the short and long run?
Table A2 should show descriptive statistics for an effective sample, i.e. variable college has 3,629 observations. The effective sample used in the analysis should have 3,629 observations.
Author Response
- In the introduction, contributions of the study should be explicitly identified and briefly elaborated.
Response: We thank the reviewer for highlighting this. We have added more context related to our contribution in the revised manuscript. (Please see pgs.1-2, lines 31-57).
- What is shown on the horizontal and vertical axes on Figures 1 and 2? If time is not on a horizontal axis, how do you distinguish between the short and long run?
Response: We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have added labels on the horizontal and vertical axes. (Please see Figure 1 on pg.7 and Figure 2 on pg.8).
- Table A2 should show descriptive statistics for an effective sample, i.e., variable college has 3,629 observations. The effective sample used in the analysis should have 3,629 observations.
Response: We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have removed Table A2 and replaced it with Table 2 using the effective sample. (Please see pg.6).
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors make reference to a "steady state" in the abstract, but there is no theoretical backing for using this term in the paper. Third paragraph of the section dedicated to literature is useless and can be dropped without damage (as well as discussions around lines 225, as the focus of the paper is the US, I doubt some arguments are relevant here).
Why have the authors not considered time fixed effects? This should be stated and if the method allows it, it should be included, given that the dataset covers a hundred years, during which many relations between the variable of interest and the dependent one could have changed. Moreover, is the method adapted to a small number of observations? The should be discussed.
How is the Low / High temperature threshold defined? This is not clear and should be explained much better.
Line 195: could the difference between the two types of states be due to the fact the the low temperature ones have not yet got through the adaptation costs (to higher yearly average temperature)?
More generally, the paper is very short on the discussion of the mechanisms, largely reducing its interest. And, the tables of results should be shown, even if in an appendix to the paper.
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is very well written, and the topic is fascinating and developed perfectly and scientifically. It can be published immediately.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for their positive comments.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has improved after addressing the suggestions and comments by the reviewers.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have taken my comments into account and provided a satisfactory response to my concerns.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have answered my requests, so I have no issue left with regard to the paper.
