As global temperatures go up and incomes rise, air conditioner sales are poised to increase dramatically. Recent studies explore the potential economic and environmental impacts of this growth, but relatively little attention has been paid to the implications for inequality. In this paper we use household-level microdata from 16 countries to characterize empirically the relationship between climate, income, and residential air conditioning. We show that both current and future air conditioner usage is concentrated among high-income households. Not only do richer countries have much more air conditioning than poorer countries, but within countries adoption is highly concentrated among high-income households. The pattern of adoption is particularly stark in relatively low-income countries such as Pakistan, where we show that the vast majority of adoption between now and 2050 will be concentrated among the upper income tercile. We use our model to forecast future adoption, show how patterns vary across countries and income levels, and discuss what these patterns mean for health, productivity, and educational inequality.

随着全球气温上升和收入增加，空调销量有望大幅增加。最近的研究探索了这种增长的潜在经济和环境影响，但是对不平等的影响却很少受到关注。在本文中，我们使用来自 16 个国家/地区的家庭级微观数据来实证表征气候、收入和住宅空调之间的关系。我们表明，当前和未来的空调使用都集中在高收入家庭中。不仅富裕国家比贫穷国家拥有更多的空调，而且在国家内部，空调的采用高度集中在高收入家庭中。收养模式在巴基斯坦等相对低收入国家尤为明显，我们表明，从现在到 2050 年，绝大多数的采用将集中在高收入三分位数中。我们使用我们的模型来预测未来的采用情况，展示不同国家和收入水平的模式如何变化，并讨论这些模式对健康、生产力和教育不平等的意义。