Climate change and income inequality in Asia: how does institutional quality matter?

Asia – the most vulnerable continent to climate change – problematizes policy makers with its dual challenges of high income inequality and low institutional quality. This paper sheds light on the impact of climate change and institutional quality on income inequality for a panel data set of 35 Asian countries and territories over the period of 1990–2021. Results from estimations of Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) and two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) demonstrate that the climate change – proxied by temperature and precipitation – exacerbates income inequality, while improvement in institutional quality not only reduces it, but also lessens the harmful impact of climate change on income equality. Findings are robust with various proxies of income inequality. These results strongly confirm the important role of institutional reform in the context of rising climate change and high level of income inequality in Asian countries.