The complexity of green job creation: An analysis of green job development in Brazil

Rising temperatures and sea levels, as well as the depletion of natural resource stocks, places green growth more than ever at the center of our political and economic agendas. But how can a country or region exactly “go green”? Transforming current economic structures into a green economy is a complex process. The structure of an economy is determined by the type of jobs that are present in an economy. Therefore, the creation of green jobs is one of the components of the “going green” process. Using occupational data for 27 Brazilian states between 2003 and 2013, this paper examines whether the level of economic complexity of a state explains why one state has a greener occupation space than another. First, we construct a “green jobs index” which quantitatively measures the greenness of the occupation space of a state. We then empirically show that economic complexity has a positive explanatory power when it comes to differences in this green jobs index. We also show that transitioning through this occupational space is a slow and difficult process. Nonetheless, we find evidence of declining regional differences in greenness. Initially, states which had a low green jobs index became relatively greener than states that had initially a high green jobs index. This indicates convergence across states.