환경정책이 일자리 창출에 미치는 효과 연구 = Effects of Environmental Policies on the Creation of Jobs in Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Despite the importance of sustainable development strategy, policy makers are suspicious about the inter-relationship between the implementation of environmental policies and job creation, which becomes a barrier in actively enforcing environmental policies. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework to systematically analyze how the introduction of new environmental policies or environmental regulations impact job creation. Through theoretical considerations and case studies on the inter-relationship between enforcing environmental policy and creating jobs, we find that environmental policies need to be designed to encourage eco-friendly technological innovation and maximize employment, even if those policies are not very effective in creating jobs in the beginning. Also, in the future, the quality of employment induced by environmental policies must also be highlighted. The empirical results of correlation between environmental policy and job creation (Panel data analysis) show that it is hard to conclude that environmental policies has a great impact on job creation. However, we find that environmental policies do not have negative impact and influence positively on creating jobs. The empirical results of inter-industry analysis (Input-Output Table analysis) on job creation effect are as follows: The enforcement of the Indoor Air Quality Control Act enabled a total of 652 people to find jobs, and approximately 526 people were employed thanks to the Act between 2015 and 2019. The empirical results of simulation experiment (CGE model analysis) conducted to estimate the job creation effect of the introduction of K-REACH are as follows: With the enforcement of K-REACH, labor supply of the overall economy increases by 1.84% in 2015, by 1.39% in 2016, and continues to grow until 2020 before dropping by 0.2% in 2021, and gradually diminishing until 2024 when compared to business as usual (BAU) without the introduction of K-REACH. It can be empirically confirmed that introducing environmental policies or environmental regulations promote job creation in our country. Therefore, in the future, “employment-friendly environment policies” should be actively pursued and to that end, we would like to propose the following: First, environmental regulations should be designed to ensure that environmental protection and job creation are compatible. Second, environmental policies that lead to eco-innovations should be actively pursued. Third, environmental policies should promote a stable employment condition and enhance the quality of employment. Fourth, an assessment of employment effect should be conducted when pushing forward environmental policies in the future and a method should be developed to assess the employment effect of the environmental field.