Are Green Jobs Real Jobs? The Case of Italy

摘要

The European Union is strongly promoting the adoption of renewable energy sources (RES). This policy relies mostly on environmental reasons, but its promoters also claim that RES subsidies will result into the creation of a significant number of jobs. This papers takes into examination the case of Italian policies with regard to solar panels and wind turbines. The number of RES-related jobs is estimated and it is compared with the number of jobs that are displaced by higher energy prices, due to the cost of incentives. The net balance is found to be negative.