a uk carbon energy tax a carbon energy tax has been proposed by the european commission to start as us 3 per barrel oil equivalent in 1993 rising to us 10 in 2000 the effects of this tax on the uk economy can be assessed by using a large scale energy environment economy model in which energy demand is treated by means of aggregate equations for energy users and fuel share equations for electricity and each of the main fossil fuels the electricity supply industry is represented in the model by simulating the characteristics of each existing generating station and of a range of new station types and by allowing the model to choose the fuels used from relative fuel prices and prices of capital inputs this approach contrasts with the multimodel approach used in most studies of the effects of the tax the tax is introduced as a tax on imports and domestic output of fossil fuels in proportion to their carbon and energy content with the tax being passed on through the economic system depending on the use of the fuels thus the electricity industry is faced with higher prices for coal gas and fuel oil and chooses to burn the different fuels according to their relative prices four scenarios are developed which vary according to the way the tax revenues are recycled through reductions in vat or in income tax rates and whether the tax is introduced throughout the european community or throughout the oecd if the tax is european it is assumed that the energy intensive industries will be exempt the outcome is that the tax is sufficient to stabilize co2 emissions over the period 1990 2005 at 12 below base levels by the end of the period there is an overall saving of energy compared to base and a further switch to gas in electricity generation the effects on the macroeconomy are rather small and as the revenues are recycled rather than saved by the government gdp growth is likely to increase under the tax by some 0 2 above base this confirms other studies in which revenues are recycled but contradicts many results from studies in which revenue recycling is ignored or incomplete the effects on the energy intensive industries are expected to be small in all the scenarios but 14 of tax revenues are lost if the industries are exempt

how to improve the performance of carbon tax in china abstract the chinese government committed to controlling carbon dioxide co 2 emissions and promoting development of non fossil fuels thus it becomes a top priority for the government to develop effective climate policies against such background this paper develops a new multi country computable general equilibrium cge model with detailed energy disaggregation this study evaluates the impact of single policy instrument carbon tax and combined policy mixes in order to investigate driving factors affecting the policy performance the main findings are as follows firstly the driving factors can be classified into two types the first type of factors affects cost effectiveness significantly while the second type generates considerable effect on emission performance secondly cross border externalities function as important barriers to the co 2 emission reduction since they imply extra competitiveness loss and result in considerable carbon leakage finally this paper considers two integrated policy mixes wherein carbon tax revenue is recycled to reduce capital tax or support clean energy subsidy these policy mixes can improve both cost effectiveness and emission performance and thus perform better than carbon tax alone in this way carbon tax revenue can be used to improve the performance looking ahead complicated policy mixes are preferred to improve the performance of china s carbon tax

global warming policy a public finance perspective in the last few years a substantial volume of research has considered the design of taxes to slow greenhouse gas emissions as well as the economic effects of such policies in this paper i summarize the insights that have emerged from this work i begin by explaining that while efficiency considerations create a presumption for using coordinated international policies to alter greenhouse gas emissions the prospects for such action are bleak then i focus on the public finance of carbon taxes at the national level considering the design of such taxes as well as their incidence across and within nations next i focus on greenhouse gas emission policies that could be enacted in less developed countries such as the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies and other policies to slow deforestation finally i suggest several promising directions for future study

production and transportation outsourcing decisions in the supply chain under single and multiple carbon policies abstract cap and trade and carbon tax are the two main policies to reduce carbon emissions different from the previous literature and practice this paper examines the production and transportation outsourcing problems of a two echelon supply chain under the cap and trade policy and joint cap and trade and carbon tax policy enterprise operations are divided into the order stage and transportation outsourcing decision stage in the order stage the retailer sets his order schedule for the manufacturing plant for fulfillment and in the transportation outsourcing decision stage the manufacturer decides the optimal freight volume based on energy consumption furthermore we construct a basic model without a carbon policy and two extended models with carbon policies and the optimal solutions of the models are solved numerical examples are provided and the three models are compared the results indicate that the extended model with carbon policies is more beneficial for emissions reduction and the effect of emissions reduction gradually becomes smooth as the carbon price increases the joint cap and trade and carbon tax policy is more effective for emissions reduction especially when the carbon price is lower these findings will be helpful to policy makers and managers

energy and carbon taxes and their distributional implications this paper studies the equity effects of energy and carbon taxes as policy instruments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fulfil the legally binding reduction targets adopted in the 1997 kyoto protocol to the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc the equity effects of taxes on energy products are studied in the broader context of a revenue neutral environmental fiscal reform the paper shows that carbon or energy taxes are mildly regressive and that impacts on low income households are less than expected the distributional implications depend on various issues such as whether the type of fuel being taxed heating transport and in particular how the revenues are recycled back to the economy the importance of compensation and mitigation measures is also discussed

the long term impact of military service on health evidence from world war ii and korean war veterans during the world war ii and korean war era the u s military freely distributed cigarettes to overseas personnel and provided low cost tobacco products on domestic military bases in fact even today the military continues to sell subsidized tobacco products on its bases using a variety of instrumental variables approaches to deal with nonrandom selection into the military and into smoking we provide substantial evidence that cohorts with higher military participation rates subsequently suffered more premature mortality more importantly we show that a large fraction 35 to 79 percent of the excess veteran deaths due to heart disease and lung cancer are attributable to military induced smoking

the distribution of uk personal income tax compliance costs governments are committed to reducing the regulatory burden on business and individuals while at the same time transferring many tasks from bureaucrats one such example is tax compliance where self assessment sa has raised concerns that such transfers may place a particularly heavy burden on lower income and elderly taxpayers this is the first study since its introduction into the uk in 1996 of the regulatory burden which sa imposes on individuals we identify both the total compliance burden and its components for individuals who might be expected to incur high compliance costs because they pay tax on nonbusiness employment income we use a specially designed questionnaire and find that within this group the burden seems to have increased by less than 25 compliance costs are regressive but do not impinge disproportionately on the elderly the compliance burden is determined by income occupation education but not specifically in accounting subjects and difficulty in attending to tax affairs

estimation of turkey s ghg emissions from electricity generation by fuel types as a result of fossil fuel combustion in electricity generation significant amounts of co2 is emitted and the amount of emission differs based on fuel type in turkey a considerable amount of greenhouse gas ghg emission is related to electricity generation and co2 has the highest share among those a number of technical economic and social factors such as economic growth energy consumption types of energy sources seasonality employment and increase in population affect the changes in the emission rates an energy system based on fossil fuels is mainly responsible for high ghg emissions and there are some measures to reduce the emission of ghgs development of renewable energy sources and improvements in energy efficiency are among the most important measures market based mechanisms are among other measures that directly target ghgs considering the fossil fuels in the energy mix using fossil fuels with high heating values and efficient energy conversion technologies means less ghgs organizing training and information programs for raising people s energy awareness encouraging conservation and increasing energy efficiency would have a significant role in reducing ghgs as well this study attempts to estimate the annual co2 emission from electricity generation according to fuel types for the period between 2013 and 2017 electricity generation data according to fuel types were obtained from turkish electricity transmission co teia s 5 year electricity generation capacity projection 2013 2017 according to the estimations turkey s co2 emission values are expected to increase in the forthcoming years additionally estimated revenues from the carbon tax imposed on the electricity generated by fossil fuels were calculated for each year of the projection period this revenue creates a significant economic resource results of this study are expected to guide policy makers in developing energy and environmental policies and contribute to energy diversity studies

going to college to avoid the draft the unintended legacy of the vietnam war between 1965 and 1975 the enrollment rate of college age men in the united states rose and then fell abruptly many contemporary observers e g james davis and kenneth dolbeare 1968 attributed the surge in college attendance to draft avoidance behavior under a policy first introduced in the korean war the selective service issued college deferments to enrolled men that delayed their eligibility for conscription these deferments provided a strong incentive to remain in school for men who wanted to avoid the draft for example the college entry rate of young men rose from 54 percent in 1963 to 62 percent in 1968 the peak year of the draft moreover both the college entry rate and the number of inductions dropped sharply between 1968 and 1973 as the draft was being phased out although these parallel trends are suggestive they do not necessarily prove that draft avoidance raised the education of men who were at risk of service during the vietnam war such an inference requires an explicit specification of the counterfactual what would have happened to schooling outcomes in the absence of the draft in this paper we use trends in enrollment and completed schooling of men relative to those of women to measure the effects of draftavoidance behavior during the vietnam war our maintained hypothesis is that in the absence of gender specific factors such as the draft the relative schooling outcomes of men and women from the same cohort would follow a smooth trend in light of the sharp discontinuity in military induction rates between 1965 and 1970 we look for similar patterns in the relative enrollment rate of men and in the relative college graduation rate of men from cohorts that were at risk of induction during this period

reduction of fossil fuel emissions in the usa a holistic approach towards policy formulation abstract in the united states the response of the federal government to the global initiative of reduction of emissions of co2 has been limited with the kyoto protocol having entered into force in february 2005 there will be renewed international pressure on the united states for action concurrently the us economy growing modestly is characterized by large current account and budget deficits this situation calls for garnering additional revenue through repealing of the recent tax cuts an option available is to impose a modest carbon tax the rationale of such a tax is that it would address the twin objectives of additional revenue and reduction of emissions in this paper the impact of a hypothetical carbon tax imposed in a revenue neutral context on 2001 household incomes is analyzed primarily to ascertain its progressivity progressivity of any tax is strongly associated with its political acceptability the incidence of the hypothetical carbon tax is computed across the income quintiles it is observed that only the households in the highest income quintile and the lowest income quintile are impacted by the tax it is found that this tax is weakly regressive in the us context

what do we know about carbon taxes an inquiry into their impacts on competitiveness and distribution of income abstract the kyoto protocol to the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc has set legally binding emissions targets for a basket of six greenhouse gases and timetables for industrialised countries it has also incorporated three international flexibility mechanisms however the articles defining the flexibility mechanisms carry wording that their use must be supplemental to domestic actions this has led to the open debates on interpretations of these supplementarity provisions such debates ended at the resumed sixth conference of the parties cop to the unfccc held in bonn july 2001 and at the subsequent cop 7 in marrakesh november 2001 the final wording in the bonn agreement reaffirmed in the marrakesh accords at least indicates that domestic policies will have an important role to play in meeting annex b countries emissions commitments carbon taxes have long been advocated because of their cost effectiveness in achieving a given emissions reduction in this paper the main economic impacts of carbon taxes are assessed based on a review of empirical studies on existing carbon energy taxes it is concluded that competitive losses and distributive impacts are generally not significant and definitely less than often perceived however given the ultimate objective of the framework convention future carbon taxes could have higher rates than those already imposed and thus the resulting economic impacts could be more acute in this context it has been shown that how to use the generated fiscal revenues will be of fundamental importance in determining the final economic impacts of carbon taxes finally we briefly discuss carbon taxes in combination with other domestic and international instruments

fossil fuel subsidy reforms and their impacts on firms abstract while the potential adverse effects of fossil fuel subsidy reform are well documented for households the literature has largely ignored the effect of subsidy reform on firms competitiveness this paper discusses how firms are affected by and respond to energy price increases caused by subsidy reforms it highlights that cost increases both direct and indirect do not necessarily reflect competitiveness losses since firms have various ways to mitigate and pass on price shocks this paper presents and discusses direct and indirect transmission channels for price shocks and firms response measures absorbing cost shocks into profits inter fuel substitution increasing energy and material efficiency and passing on price increases it argues that further micro econometric studies using enterprise surveys are essential for quantifying the role of these mechanisms and for designing policy measures that ensure that competitiveness losses due to subsidy reforms are minimised

a chinese sky trust distributional impacts of carbon charges and revenue recycling in china abstract the introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in china would have a progressive impact on income distribution this outcome which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns if carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a sky trust the progressive impact would be further enhanced low income mainly rural households would receive more in sky trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges and high income mainly urban households would pay more than they receive in dividends thus a chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality

european environmental taxes and charges recent experience issues and trends abstract the use of environmental taxes and charges in oecd countries increased by over 50 between 1987 and 1994 while revenues raised by environmental taxes and charges remain small relative to overall taxation they comprise a rising proportion in most european countries several european countries have either undertaken or are considering systematic shifts in taxes away from labour and onto the use of environmental resources potential negative effects on competitiveness and regressive distributional effects are the major cause of concern with regard to the introduction of environmental taxes a number of ways of mitigating such effects exist and have been implemented

addressing the competitiveness effects of taxing carbon in china domestic tax cuts versus border tax adjustments abstract this study focuses on the international competitiveness effects of levying a carbon tax in china based on a computable general equilibrium model this study analysed the impacts of a carbon tax on different sectors from the aspect of changes in market shares of domestic producers in the domestic markets and changes in exports the effects of different measures including domestic tax cuts and border tax adjustments in alleviating the unfavourable competitiveness impacts were also analysed and compared as were the impacts of different tax schemes on the macro economy sectoral profits and carbon emissions the results show that without any complementary measures a carbon tax would negatively shock the domestic market shares and exports of almost all tradable sectors and the profits of almost all sectors as for cushioning the unfavourable effects the domestic tax cuts are able to ease the negative impacts on the domestic market shares and exports of almost all tradable sectors moreover the unfavourable impacts of domestic tax cuts on both the macro economy and the sectoral profits are obviously smaller than those of the other schemes regardless of the use of the same tax rate or emission reduction amount among the border tax adjustment measures the best performance in general corresponds to the measure purely implementing adjustments on exports

joint production and pricing decisions for multiple products with cap and trade and carbon tax regulations abstract cap and trade and carbon tax regulations are the two main low carbon policies to curb carbon emissions this paper studies the joint production and pricing problem of a manufacturing firm with multiple products under cap and trade and carbon tax regulations and compares the effects of the two regulations on the total carbon emissions the firm s profit and social welfare the firm faces price sensitive demands and the demands for these products are independent firstly we find that the optimal number of products to be produced under cap and trade regulation carbon tax regulation is determined by the emission trading prices and the cap tax rate secondly we detect that the optimal cap tax rate is decreasing increasing or constant in the environmental damage coefficient finally we discover that the social welfare under carbon tax regulation is not less than that under cap and trade regulation although there is neither one regulation always inducing more profit and having advantages in curbing carbon emissions than the other one

military service and human capital accumulation evidence from colonial punjab this paper estimates the impact of military recruitment during world war i on human capital accumulation in colonial punjab the empirical strategy exploits the exogenous increase in recruitment by the indian army during the war higher military recruitment is found to be associated with increased literacy at the district religion level the observed improvement in the human capital stock appears to be driven by the informal acquisition of literacy skills by serving soldiers

the effect of carbon tax on per capita co2 emissions new huadu business school 09zd050 national social science foundation of china 09zd050 08ajy022 research foundation of ministry of education of china 10jzd0018 fundamental research funds for the central universities 2010221051

the compliance costs of collecting direct tax in the uk an analysis of paye and national insurance abstract this paper analyses the determinants of compliance costs of the system of direct taxation known as pay as you earn paye in the uk this is administered by firms who deduct the tax from their employees and after a lag pay it to the government the analysis shows that there are important economies of scale in addition compliance costs are directly proportional to i disturbance variables such as labour market flows ii complexity variables as proxied by the average wage and the proportion of casual workers and iii the frequency with which workers are paid

do carbon taxes work analysis of government policies and enterprise strategies in equilibrium abstract to achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction a number of countries have implemented carbon tax policies and carbon pricing has become an important tool this paper discusses the interactions between a government and an enterprise for implementing carbon taxes over time or by level of tax considering greenhouse gas emission we examine the impacts of various carbon tax policies on enterprises investments in new technology their reductions in production quantity and governments tax remittances a case study of the strategic responses of three firms in taiwan s electronics cement and steel industries to two carbon emission policies promulgated by government shows that appropriate levels of tax can induce an enterprise to alter its production processes to achieve emission reduction as part of a long term business strategy

the role of revenue sharing and first mover advantage in emission abatement with carbon tax and consumer environmental awareness abstract in this study we explore the role of revenue sharing and first mover advantage in manufacturer s carbon emission abatement effort and the firms profitability in a linear demand setting where the government might impose some carbon emission charges and consumers may have environmental awareness we consider a supply chain system consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer either of them can move first to offer the other firm a wholesale price contract wp or a revenue sharing contract rs which is termed as abatement level promise strategy pr and abatement level requirement strategy rq respectively our analysis shows that under both pr and rq there exists a unique abatement level maximizing the manufacturer s profit in wp and rs respectively moreover both firms incentives for abatement are perfectly aligned under pr but are misaligned under rq when the marginal abatement cost is large contrary to conventional wisdom rs does not necessarily dull the manufacturer s effort in abatement it depends on whether she possesses first mover advantage and whether consumers have environmental awareness further with consumer environmental awareness numerically or without both firms always prefer to possess first mover advantage but the system s profit under rq is smaller than that under pr numerically surprisingly whether a greater share of revenue benefits a firm depending on whether the firm possesses first mover advantage numerically finally under both rq numerically and pr rs fails to coordinate the system

the interface between environmental and trade policies last march i gave the frank paish lecture to the society under the title economic life in a greenhouse in my lecture i tried both to survey professional opinion as to some of the possible climatic implications of the greenhouse effect and also to draw out the economic consequences which might follow towards the end of my talk i made reference to some preliminary joint work with randy wigle 2 a colleague at wilfrid laurier university in canada on the global consequences of carbon tax schemes designed to limit and or reduce the build up of co2 emissions a key element underlying the greenhouse effect the written version of the lecture consciously does not reproduce the survey material which made up the first part of the lecture instead it elaborates on the issues raised towards the end it incorporates the work by randy wigle and myself and offers some thoughts on what seems to be a growing issue for the iggos namely the consequences for the international trading system of interactions between trade issues and both future global and current national environmental policies what follows emphasises that if they occur in the next few decades global policy responses3 carbon taxes tradeable permit schemes to environmental concerns will almost certainly have large economic effects among these are likely to be significant effects on trade patterns and trade volumes large interregional effects will also accompany such policies depending upon how such policies are implemented also the i99os may see a growing use of trade measures to achieve objectives set for environmental policies environmental policies towards such countries as brazil the philippines and others where deforestation is a concern may increasingly take the form of threatened trade sanctions unless compliance with global environmental policy objectives occurs 4

energy and climate hand in hand financing res e support with carbon revenues abstract in italy the cost of support for renewable electricity res e is largely recovered through the a3 surcharge which weighs heavily on electricity bills using household survey data we show the a3 surcharge is markedly regressive carbon taxation in the non ets sector is envisaged as a means to reduce co2 emissions cost effectively and generate revenue to lower the a3 surcharge a non ets carbon tax would be less regressive than the a3 surcharge and its cost would be more evenly distributed across households we calculate the revenue of a 20 tco2 non ets carbon tax would have allowed a cut in the a3 surcharge of about 68 in 2011 and 39 in 2012 the impact of the carbon tax plus the reduced a3 surcharge would have been less regressive but the cost higher for most households the restrictions imposed in the simulations mean the results are only appropriate to render first round effects of the reform policy relevance in the vast majority of the eu member states the cost of res e support is largely paid by electricity consumers most often through specific surcharges rising electricity prices are a common concern given the implications for competitiveness and equity the member states facing this issue could conveniently address it through environmental tax reforms consistent with the climate and energy package replacing res e surcharges with carbon taxes in the non ets sector would permit cost effective reduction of co2 emissions while allocating the cost of res e support more equitably the difference in regressivity would stem from the different consumption patterns of home fuels including electricity and motor fuels across income distribution a cross country comparison of energy household budget shares proves the structural nature of this difference between home fuels and motor fuels moreover the notion that electricity consumers should pay for res e support is questioned on the grounds that electricity is a basic necessity good and res e support is a means of providing public goods notably energy security and climate protection

industrialization and bilingualism in india bilingualism is a distinct and important form of human capital in linguistically diverse countries when communication among workers increases productivity there can be economic incentives to learn a second language i study how the growth of industrial employment increased bilingualism in india between 1931 and 1961 during that period indian factories were linguistically mixed i exploit industrial clustering and sectoral demand growth for identification the effect on bilingualism was strongest in import competing districts and among local linguistic minorities bilingualism was mainly the result of learning rather than than migration or assimilation and was not a byproduct of becoming literate my results shed new light on human capital investment in developing economies and on the long run evolution of languages and cultures

history institutions and economic performance the legacy of colonial land tenure systems in india we analyze the colonial land revenue institutions set up by the british in india and show that differences in historical property rights institutions lead to sustained differences in economic outcomes areas in which proprietary rights in land were historically given to landlords have significantly lower agricultural investments and productivity in the post independence period than areas in which these rights were given to the cultivators these areas also have significantly lower investments in health and education these differences are not driven by omitted variables or endogeneity problems they probably arise because differences in historical institutions lead to very different policy choices

selection on observed and unobserved variables assessing the effectiveness of catholic schools in this paper we measure the effect of catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores because we do not have a good instrumental variable for catholic school attendance we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables we also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of catholic school attendance to selection bias we use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a catholic high school on a variety of outcomes our main conclusion is that catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and more tentatively attending college we find little evidence of an effect on test scores

customs related transaction costs firm size and international trade intensity customs are generally perceived as a time consuming impediment to international trade however few studies have empirically examined the determinants and the impact of this type of government imposed transaction costs this paper analyses the role of firm size as a determinant of customs related transaction costs as well as the effect of firm size on the relationship between these costs and the international trade intensity of firms the results of this study indicate that customs related transaction costs repress international trade activities of firms even at low levels of these costs the paper identifies transaction related economies of scale simplified customs procedures and advanced information and communication technology as main determinants of customs related transaction costs it is shown that when these factors are taken into account firm size has no effect on customs related transaction costs policy implications are considered for firm strategy and public policy

a literature based multi criteria evaluation of the eu ets abstract this article reviews the existing literature on the european union emission trading scheme eu ets focusing on empirical ex post research since the end of the first period 2007 the literature is presented through a multi criteria evaluation concerning environmental effectiveness despite over allocation during the first period abatement is estimated between 2 5 and 5 trade driven carbon leakage was not observed even if long term economic models predict divergent leakage estimates for certain at risk sectors the abatement target was likely to be below an economically efficient level but was reached in a fairly cost effective way even if free allocation gave rise to several distortional effects equity concerns were manifold and constitute a major drawback to the policy finally institutional feasibility can be considered positive in that the eu ets passed the european legislative process unlike the previously proposed eu wide carbon tax

unilateral co2 reductions and carbon leakage the consequences of international trade in oil and basic materials a recursively dynamic general equilibrium model featuring six world regions with trade in energy and non energy goods is used to simulate the period from 1990 through 2100 in 10 year intervals the simulations explore the effect of unilateral action by the oecd to curb global co2 emissions unilateral cuts create incentives for free riding by non participating regions so that global emissions are reduced by less than the amount that the oecd cuts back its regional emissions carbon leakage occurs through two channels first basic materials production increases in unconstrained regions resulting in increased carbon intensity of gdp second reductions in oecd oil imports cause the world oil price to fall leading to an increased energy intensity in the non participant regions in this paper we use a general equilibrium model to assess the extent to which these two mechanisms reduce the effectiveness of oecd reductions in curbing global co2 concentrations

how to set the proper level of carbon tax in the context of chinese construction sector a cge analysis abstract under global warming and severe environmental problems the paris agreement urges china to accelerate the pace of the low carbon economy improving the energy efficiency of the construction sector may be an important way to reduce co2 emissions as a reasonable energy policy instrument a carbon tax can effectively improve energy efficiency and reduce co2 emissions in this study a dynamic computable general equilibrium model is developed to explore the possible impacts of different carbon tax conditions on the energy consumption of the construction sector and the macroeconomy of china results show that the appropriate carbon tax is 60 rmb t which cannot only achieve the emission reduction target but also minimize the negative impact on the macroeconomy however the proper level of the carbon tax varies by building stage under the proper carbon tax level the peak of carbon emissions could be reached in 2025 the main purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical basis for the government in formulating different energy policies

a future for carbon taxes abstract carbon taxes have been frequently advocated as a cost effective instrument for reducing emissions however in the practice of environmental policies only six countries have implemented taxes based on the carbon content of the energy products in this paper we evaluate carbon taxes with regard to their competitiveness distributional and environmental impacts the evidence shows that carbon taxes may be an interesting policy option and that their main negative impacts may be compensated through the design of the tax and the use of the generated fiscal revenues

when can carbon abatement policies increase welfare the fundamental role of distorted factor markets abstract this paper employs analytical and numerical models to assess the welfare effects of a revenue neutral carbon tax and nonauctioned carbon emissions permits taking into account preexisting tax distortions in factor markets the presence of preexisting taxes significantly raises the general equilibrium costs of both policies this cost increase is much greater under emissions permits since this policy does not generate revenues to reduce distortionary taxes under our central estimates emissions permits cannot increase welfare unless environmental damages exceed about 18 per ton of carbon in contrast an appropriately scaled carbon tax is welfare improving so long as environmental damages are positive

cowards and heroes group loyalty in the american civil war what motivated men to risk death in the most horrific war in u s history when pay was low and irregular and military punishment strategies were weak in such a situation creating group loyalty by promoting social capital is of paramount importance and in the civil war was the cement of both armies we find that individual and company socioeconomic and demographic characteristics ideology and morale were important predictors of group loyalty in the union army company characteristics were more important than ideology or morale soldiers in companies that were more homogeneous in ethnicity occupation and age were less likely to shirk

optimal environmental taxation in the presence of other taxes general equilibrium analyses this paper examines the optimal setting of environmental taxes in economies where other distortionary taxes are present we employ analytical and numerical models to explore the degree to which in a second best economy optimal environmental tax rates differ from the rates implied by the pigovian principle according to which the optimal tax rate equals the marginal environmental damages both models indicate contrary to what several analysts have suggested that the optimal tax rate on emissions of a given pollutant is generally less than the rate supported by the pigovian principle moreover the optimal rate is lower the larger are the distortions posed by ordinary taxes numerical results indicate that previous studies may have seriously overstated the size of the optimal carbon tax by disregarding pre existing taxes this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

public preferences for carbon tax attributes the impacts of climate change are already visible throughout the world recognizing the threats posed by climate change the durban platform the 17th session of the conference of parties cop 17 underscores that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation and ambitious action by all countries a crucial starting point for the design of effective and publicly acceptable policies is to explore public preferences for climate policy instruments using a choice experiment this study investigates public preferences for carbon tax attributes in a developing country context the results account for heterogeneity in preferences and show that turkish people prefer a carbon tax with a progressive cost distribution rather than one with a regressive cost distribution the private cost has a negative effect on the probability of choosing the tax earmarking carbon tax revenues increases the public acceptability of the tax moreover there is a preference for a carbon tax that promotes public awareness of climate change

tax avoidance and the deadweight loss of the income tax traditional analyses of the income tax greatly underestimate deadweight losses by ignoring its effect on forms of compensation and patterns of consumption the full deadweight loss is easily calculated using the compensated elasticity of taxable income to changes in tax rates because leisure excludable income and deductible consumption are a hicksian composite good microeconomic estimates imply a deadweight loss of as much as 30 of revenue or more than ten times harberger s classic 1964 estimate the relative deadweight loss caused by increasing existing tax rates is substantially greater and may exceed 2 per 1 of revenue

white certificates for energy efficiency improvement with energy taxes a theoretical economic model in this paper we analyze interactions of two energy policy instruments namely a white certificates whc scheme as an innovative policy instrument for energy efficiency improvement and energy taxation these policy instruments differ in terms of objectives and final impacts on the price of electricity we examine the effect of these policy instruments in the electricity sector focusing on electricity producers and suppliers in a competitive market using microeconomic theory we identify synergies between market players and demonstrate the total effect on the electricity price when suppliers internalize the behaviour of producers in their decisions this model refers to an ideal market situation of full liberalization the cases we examine consist of electricity producers with and without a carbon tax electricity suppliers with and without an electricity tax and with whc obligations furthermore we present a parallel implementation of whc for electricity suppliers with carbon tax on electricity producers and an electricity tax with whc obligations to electricity suppliers we demonstrate differences in optimization behaviour of producers and suppliers based on a couple of cases of whc with carbon and electricity taxes various positive and negative effects of both schemes in terms of target achievement and efficiency are present which can lead to an added value of such schemes in the policy mix although uncertainties of outcomes are quite high a basic finding is that in a merit order several parameters can increase final electricity price after the implementation of different policies demand for electricity and electricity supply cost at a large scale and then follow the level of level of obligation for energy saving level of penalty and price of whc representing the marginal costs of energy saving projects the impact magnitude of parameters depends on the values chosen and on the initial position of suppliers i e if their actual behaviour deviates from full compliance with targets

distributional and regional economic impact of energy taxes in belgium we analyse the macroeconomic and distributional effects of increased oil excises in belgium by combining a regional computable general equilibrium cge model with a microsimulation framework that exploits the rich detail of household level data the link between the cge model and the microlevel is top down feeding changes in commodity prices factor returns and employment by sector into a microsimulation model the results suggest that policymakers face an equity efficiency trade off driven by the choice of revenue recycling options when the additional revenue is used to raise welfare transfers to households the reform is beneficial for lower income groups but output levels decrease in all regions however when the energy tax revenue is used to lower distortionary labour taxes the tax shift is slightly regressive in this case national gdp is hardly affected but regional production levels diverge the impact of the environmental tax reform on income distribution depends strongly on changes in factor prices and welfare payments whereas sector composition is an important determinant for regional impact variation

increasing carbon and material productivity through environmental tax reform abstract environmental tax reform etr a shift in taxation towards environmental taxes has been implemented on a small scale in a number of european countries this paper first gives a short review of the literature about etr an appendix briefly describes the model used for a modelling exercise to explore through scenarios with low and high international energy prices the implications of a large scale etr in the european union sufficient to reach the eu s emission reduction targets for 2020 the paper then reports the results of the exercise the etr results in increased carbon and materials but reduced labour productivity with the emission reductions distributed across all sectors as a reduction in the demand for all fossil fuels there are also small gdp increases for most but not all eu countries for all the scenarios and for the eu as a whole both the environmental and macroeconomic outcomes are better with low than with high energy prices because the former both increases the scale of the etr required to reach the targets and reduces the outflow of foreign exchange to pay for energy imports etr emerges from the exercise as an attractive and cost effective policy for environmental improvement

an analysis of company choice preference to carbon tax policy in china abstract this paper summarizes an analysis of choice preferences of chinese companies to the design options of carbon tax policy the data were collected from 201 companies with around half of them based in the western shanxi province and the other half from the eastern jiangsu province modeling analysis of the discrete choice dataset confirms the statistically significant relationships between the company s preferences to carbon tax policy with the policy attributes including tax rate tax relief measures and the revenue utilization from the viewpoint of chinese businesses the option of carbon tax policy with tax rate at 10 30 yuan t co 2 allowing tax relief to energy intensive sectors using the revenues specific for climate change and starting as early as the 13th five year plan period 2016 2020 would be preferable and realistic the results of this research may be referred for the discussions and development of carbon tax policy in china

welfare implication of reforming energy consumption subsidies abstract reforming energy consumption subsidies in particular for fossil fuels has been frequently referred to as a quick win policy to enhance environmental mitigation in addition the removal of such subsidies may release a sizeable portion of a country s national budget for use on more productive targets one of the most recognized challenges of such reform is selling the new energy prices to citizens particularly those with a more fragile purchasing power several empirical and technical studies have prescribed that the reform might be supported by a direct compensation mechanism in order to ensure feasibility this is what was done during the recent energy subsidy reform in iran however the compensation mechanism implemented in iran s reform was successful at the beginning but did not proceed as expected this has raised questions about the feasibility and sustainability of the direct compensation mechanism and even of the reform policy itself in this paper we consider a stylized model where direct compensation is the instrument proposed to restore consumers utility against increased energy prices we find that when prices of other goods are affected by the announced reform policy the feasibility of a subsidy reform critically depends on the value of certain parameters the initial subsidization rate the share of energy in the consumers bundle and the energy portion of price of other goods

substituting pollution taxation for general taxation some implications for efficiency in pollutions taxation abstract earlier papers have recognized that nonenvironmental benefits will be realized if pollution taxes are substituted for other taxes which impose efficiency losses on society the purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of these nonenvironmental benefits for the design of an efficient pollution tax it is found that the efficient tax may be higher or lower than that conventionally defined as optimal and that the net benefit from unrestrained pollution can have important implications for the size of the tax

energy price variation and competitiveness firm level evidence from indonesia abstract this paper uses firm survey data from the manufacturing and mining sectors in indonesia and investigates the extent to which energy prices affect competitiveness proxied by profitability persistent regional price differences due to indonesia s insular geography enable this study to show that energy prices have a small but statistically significant adverse long run effect on competitiveness though different energy types matter in different sectors by estimating cross and own price elasticities and uzawa allen partial elasticities of inter fuel substitution this study also shows that firms have the ability to respond to higher energy prices by adjusting their energy mix i e substituting certain energy goods for others moreover this study shows that firms also respond to higher energy prices by increasing energy efficiency and by passing on costs to end users nevertheless these response measures are not sufficient to fully mitigate the adverse effect of energy prices on firms based on these results policy recommendations are offered which are of immediate relevance for the design of energy pricing reforms

company s affordability of increased energy costs due to climate policies a survey by sector in china this paper estimates the affordability of chinese companies on energy cost increases due to the introduction of market based climate policies the data were collected from 170 respondents mainly from iron and steel cement and chemical industries using a multiple bounded discrete choice mbdc format estimations indicate that a mean of 8 8 in energy cost increase would be acceptable for all the samples the chemical companies express a slightly higher affordability with the mean of acceptable ratios of energy cost increases being 9 9 while the cement companies show slightly lower affordability with a mean of 7 7 econometric analysis confirms that the market competition degree has a significant but negative relationship with the affordability while the company s size is significantly and positively associated with the affordability calculations indicate that the mean of affordable energy cost increases roughly equals a carbon price of 83 7 cny t co2 about 12 usd t co2 for chemical companies and around 40 cny t co2 about 6 usd t co2 for iron and steel and cement sectors this result provides a meaningful referendum for the development of carbon tax and the establishment of a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme in china especially from the perspective of surveyed industries

comparing climate policies to reduce carbon emissions in china new huadu business school research fund national social science foundation of china 12zd059 shandong social science planning fund program 12djjj12 independent innovation foundation of shandong university iifsdu 2012gn038 ministry of education research of social sciences china postdoctoral science foundation 2013m530309

analysing the cost of an oecd environmental tax to the developing countries abstract most studies on the global warming issue neglect the impact of proposed measures eg carbon tax on the economies of the developing countries in their analyses in this paper an attempt has been made to bridge this gap by using a standard econometric model the major possible impacts of an oecd carbon tax on developing countries under different policy options were examined implementing a carbon tax policy could set serious restrictions to the developmental efforts of the developing countries the role of non commercial energy use vis a vis global warming was also investigated the need for a global perspective when designing effective environmental policies is inevitable

the consequences of child soldiering abstract little is known about the impacts of military service on human capital and labor market outcomes due to an absence of data as well as sample selection recruits are self selected screened and selectively survive we examine the case of uganda where rebel recruitment methods provide exogenous variation in conscription economic and educational impacts are widespread and persistent schooling falls by nearly a year skilled employment halves and earnings drop by a third military service seems to be a poor substitute for schooling psychological distress is evident among those exposed to severe war violence and is not limited to ex combatants

carbon taxes with exemptions in an open economy a general equilibrium analysis of the german tax initiative abstract sectoral exemptions from environmental regulation are applied in many countries to avoid adverse adjustment effects in specific industries the problem with exemptions is that they can make environmental policy more costly our paper analyzes the welfare costs of exemptions in environmental policy together with the issue of unilateral carbon taxes in an open economy several countries within the eu have introduced or contemplated unilateral taxes to reduce anthropogenic co2emissions taxes which are unilaterally imposed in an open economy can have significant impacts on production and employment of energy and export intensive industries to save jobs by maintaining international competitiveness most co2taxation schemes include exemptions for energy and export intensive industries as a compromise between environmental objectives and employment in these sectors this paper shows that such compromises are costly as the tax base narrows the dead weight loss increases our calculations illustrate this point in the framework of a static general equilibrium model for west germany calibrated to 1990 data we evaluate the excess costs of exemptions as a means of saving jobs in specific industries relative to an alternative instrument a uniform carbon tax cum wage subsidy which achieves an identical level of national emissions and employment at a fraction of the cost