Distributional effects of climate vulnerability and readiness on top income shares in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract This study examines how climate vulnerability and readiness relate to within-country income concentration in sub-Saharan Africa, thereby clarifying the relevance of climate resilience for the joint pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). Using annual panel data for 42 sub-Saharan African countries from 1995 to 2021, we estimate heterogeneous associations across the conditional distribution of inequality with a method-of-moments quantile regression (MM-QR) estimator. Climate vulnerability is negatively associated with both the Top 10% and Top 1% income shares, with the association generally stronger and more consistently significant at lower levels of income concentration. Climate readiness shows no systematic association with either measure of income concentration. Sensitivity analyses using restricted country samples largely support the negative association with vulnerability, although the Top 10% relationship is more sensitive to sample composition. The findings caution against interpreting lower measured inequality associated with climate vulnerability as improved distributional welfare and suggest that greater aggregate climate readiness does not automatically translate into more inclusive distributional outcomes.