What are green jobs and where are they?

Addressing grand environmental challenges (e.g. climate change) entails adapting the skill base and, thus, the composition of the workforce. Recent interventions both in the form of environmental regulation or of subsidies – i.e. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 and its green component, which accounts approximately for 15 per cent of the overall fiscal stimulus – revived the debate on whether environmental policies create or destroy employment. However, existing empirical evidence on green employment is limited in terms of timespan and scope due to data constraints.