The European Green Deal’s goal of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 requires an adequate mix of policies. This paper analyses three decades of climate policy from a historical perspective to provide insights into the multi-level policy framework within the EU and its Member States. Based on the Climate Policy Dataset, the paper develops an assessment guided by three key perspectives: policy density, sectoral focus, and policy instruments. Two new indexes are proposed for policy evaluation: the emissions coverage indicator, which assesses the sectoral application of policies, and the Policy Mix Thickness Index, which measures the complexity of the policy packages in terms of instruments employed. The results indicate that different strategies have been adopted at the EU and national levels in terms of policy instruments and targeted sectors. EU-level policies tend to complement Member States actions by providing long-term strategies and addressing sectors with limited national-level initiatives.

This paper proposes a new interpretation of place brand as a Multilevel Threshold Public Good (MTPG) produced by the interaction of narratives from different geographical levels. Using an original dataset of Google trends and tweets from Italian provinces and regions, we test the hypothesis that place branding has a multilevel structure. We further test the MTPG framework applied to place branding, showing that place branding is influenced by different geographic levels which can trigger a spillover in terms of attractiveness if they contribute to crossing a threshold point. The results confirm the presence of a provision point in place branding, showing that the proposed MTPG framework fits the phenomenon. This article contributes to the literature on place branding and brands by providing a new lens for interpreting the phenomenon, which may be useful in better understanding and measuring the interaction of branding strategies operating at different spatial scales.

Despite numerous beyond-GDP initiatives aimed at measuring sustainable and inclusive wellbeing, GDP remains dominant in policymaking and public debate. While previous research has examined opinions of indicator users, the perspective of indicator producers remains underexplored, even though they are key to understanding institutional and operational barriers. We therefore conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from 28 national statistical offices (NSO) and 5 international organisations (IO). We find divergent views on what it means to ”go beyond GDP” and on the ideal framework for measuring progress. There is disagreement over pluralism versus standardisation and over measurement-oriented versus policy-reshaping approaches, which influences openness to experimentation. NSOs and IOs differ systematically, with NSOs prioritising feasibility, continuity and capacity constraints, while IOs emphasise harmonisation, policy relevance and methodological innovation. However, there is broad consensus on the need to complement GDP with measures of sustainability and equity, and on the value of international guidelines to harmonise national efforts. Key challenges include balancing communicative appeal with statistical quality, and reconciling IOs’ policy ambitions with NSOs’ statistical capacities.

Prior research produced contradicting evidence regarding the role of international influence in the diffusion of climate policies. To unravel this puzzle, we examine various policy instruments adopted by G20 countries, demonstrating that peer pressure stimulates convergence in the number of new policies adopted but divergence in their stringency. This suggests that policymakers emulate the appearance of their peers but not the rigor of regulation, creating opportunities for carbon leakage.

This paper examines the relationship between income inequality and the adoption of climate mitigation policies in G20 countries between 1996 and 2020. Using a panel dataset on national climate polices and different measures of inequality, we estimate fixed-effects and correlated random-effects models to assess how inequality interplay with average income to influence climate policy adoption. The results indicate that both inequality and GDP per capita play a significant role, with their interaction revealing a non-linear effect: higher inequality tends to support policy adoption in lower-income countries, but reduces it in higher-income contexts. We identify a switching point in the average income level, beyond which inequality is associated with fewer climate policies. Further analysis of the income distribution shows that the share held by the bottom 10\% of the population is positively related to policy adoption, whereas concentration at the top has a more mixed effect. These findings suggest that the distributional structure of income shapes the demand for, and political feasibility of, climate policies. The study highlights the importance of accounting for inequality when analysing the drivers of climate governance and provides evidence that economic growth alone does not ensure stronger climate action.

We study how inequality affects the feasibility of an international agreement on the provision of an environmental public good in a two-country two-level political economy model. At the international level, two negotiators try to agree on the respective country’s provision of the public good under different international equity rules, knowing that this agreement will need to be accepted by the median voter in each country. At the national level, agents’ preferences for the public good depend on their relative income position, which implies that negotiators must also take into account the level of inequality within their country. We show that the feasibility of the agreement and the distribution of the gains from cooperation depends on the equity rule imposed, on the levels of within-country inequality, and on the level of cross-country inequality.