Who bears the burden of climate variability? A comparative analysis of the impact of weather conditions on inequality in Vietnam and Indonesia

Is climate variability regressive? One argument could be as follows: People living in areas with high risk of climate hazards usually correspond to the most disadvantaged populations. Due to existing structural inequalities, they have limited opportunities to cope with climate hazards and often fall into a spiral of further poverty and social exclusion. In this paper, we investigate whether climate variability indeed has a regressive effect in Vietnam and Indonesia where both climate variability and inequality have been increasing. We directly analyse the effect of annual and seasonal temperature on income and income inequality across years.