consumer preference and willingness to pay for a renewable fuel standard rfs policy focusing on ex ante market analysis and segmentation abstract total energy consumption of oil in 2050 is expected to increase to 1 6 times its level in 2005 and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in the transportation sector will be second only to the electricity sector in order to reduce ghg emissions in transportation leading countries have started to implement renewable fuel standard rfs policies other countries such as korea have recently started implementing rfs policies in order to comply with the proposed global ghg reduction target however previous research did not consider the impact of rfs policy on consumer acceptance levels therefore this study analyzes consumer preferences and willingness to pay wtp for rfs to provide detailed policy strategies this study conducts additional analysis using market segmentation and sensitivity analysis the results indicate that consumers generally accept the cost of implementing an rfs policy if the cost falls between krw 101 78 liter usd 0 33 gal and krw 187 26 liter usd 0 60 gal in addition consumer wtp for implementing an rfs policy changes when the income exceeds krw 5 million usd 4229 1 in driver group and relatively lower income groups tend not to support rfs policies based on the results of this study we can suggest proper pricing policies for each income group and a public relations strategy to improve the level of policy acceptance

how much damage will climate change do recent estimates two reasons to be concerned about climate change are its unjust distributional impact and its negative aggregate effect on economic growth and welfare although our knowledge of the impact of climate change is incomplete and uncertain economic valuation is difficult and controversial and the effect of other developments on the impacts of climate change is largely speculative the authors find that poorer countries and people are more vulnerable than are richer countries and people a modest global warming is likely to have a net negative effect on poor countries in hot climates but may have a net positive effect on rich countries in temperate climates if one counts dollars the world aggregate may be positive if one counts people the world aggregate is probably negative negative impacts would become more negative and positive impacts would turn negative for more substantial warming the marginal costs of carbon dioxide emissions are uncertain and sensitive to assumptions that partially reflect ethical positions but are unlikely to be larger than 50 per tonne carbon

inequality and fractionalization we present evidence that ethnic fragmentation explains variations in per capita income institutions and schooling better than income inequality when both are treated as endogenous to do so we identify instruments for ethnic fractionalization and income inequality based on historical experience using instrumental variables estimation we find that ethnic fractionalization explains the level of income both when income inequality is included as a control in the estimation and when it is not however we find no evidence that income inequality affects the level of income when ethnic fractionalization is properly treated as an endogenous variable we have similar findings when other development outcomes such as schooling or proxies for institutional quality are used as dependent variables these results are robust to various controls and changes in the sample size and suggest that some of the previous findings regarding the effect of income inequality on development should be attributed to ethnic fractionalization

efficiency performance of current account bop flows in advanced world economies considering ghg emissions abstract current account ca imbalances reveal the unequal trade and foreign direct investment t fdi flows between various countries this paper investigates the performance of the ca component of the balance of payments bop of major advanced economies following the recent global financial and economic crisis 2013 2017 using a data envelopment analysis dea second stage approach slack based inefficiency sbi dea models are proposed using both a conventional perspective and a sustainability perspective that consider greenhouse gas ghg emissions as an undesirable output the efficiency assessment aims to identify output slacks i e exports and income inflows shortfalls as well as input slacks i e import and income outflows excesses in the second stage explanatory factors of the observed ca inefficiencies have been investigated using regression models under frequentist and bayesian frameworks although some differences exist between the conventional and sustainability scenarios regarding the negative effects of trade diversification and external debt and energy dependency on ca inefficiency in both scenarios the results indicate links between ca inefficiency and geographical regions socio economic development and the burden of customs procedures

welfare effects of distortionary fringe benefits taxation the case of employer provided cars in europe many employees receive company cars as fringe benefits induced by taxation we analyze the welfare effects of company car taxation for the netherlands by estimating to what extent car expenditure and private car travel change when employees receive a company car tax treatment of company cars generates an annual welfare loss ranging from 600 to 780 per company car mainly due to a shift toward more expensive cars from 420 to 600 but also due to increased private travel 180 for the whole of europe the annual welfare loss is about 12 billion 2011 by the economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

stacking low carbon policies on the renewable fuels standard economic and greenhouse gas implications this paper examines the economic and ghg implications of stacking a low carbon fuel standard lcfs with and without a carbon price policy on the renewable fuel standard rfs we compare the performance of various policy combinations for food and fuel prices fuel mix and fuel consumption we also analyze the economic costs and benefits of alternative policy combinations and their distributional effects for consumers and producers in the transportation and agricultural sector in the us using a dynamic multi market partial equilibrium model of the transportation and agricultural sectors we find that combining the rfs with an lcfs policy leads to a reduction in first generation biofuels and an increase in second generation biofuels compared to the rfs alone this policy combination also achieves greater reduction in ghg emissions even after considering offsetting market mediated effects imposition of a carbon price with the rfs and lcfs policy primarily induces fuel conservation and achieves larger ghg emissions reduction compared to the other policy scenarios all these policy combinations lead to higher net economic benefits for the transportation and agricultural sectors relative to the no policy baseline because they improve the terms of trade for us

mass car ownership in the emerging market giants the typical urban household in china owns a tv a refrigerator a washing machine and a computer but does not yet own a car in this paper we draw on data for a panel of countries and detailed household level surveys for the largest emerging markets to document a remarkably stable relationship between gdp per capita and car ownership highlighting the importance of within country income distribution factors we find that car ownership is low up to per capita incomes of about us 5000 and then takes off very rapidly several emerging markets including india and china the most populous countries in the world are currently at the stage of development when such takeoff is expected to take place we project that the number of cars will increase by 2 3 billion between 2005 and 2050 with an increase by 1 9 billion in emerging market and developing countries we outline a number of possible policy options to deal with the implications for the countries affected and the world as a whole marcos chamon paolo mauro and yohei okawa

a non radial dea approach to measuring environmental performance data envelopment analysis dea has gained great popularity in environmental performance measurement because it can provide a synthetic standardized environmental performance index when pollutants are suitably incorporated into the traditional dea framework past studies about the application of dea to environmental performance measurement often follow the concept of radial efficiency measures in this paper we present a non radial dea approach to measuring environmental performance which consists of a non radial dea based model for multilateral environmental performance comparisons and a non radial malmquist environmental performance index for modeling the change of environmental performance over time a case study of oecd countries using the proposed non radial dea approach is also presented it is found that the environmental performance of oecd countries as a whole has been improved from 1995 to 1997

efficiency analysis for exogenously fixed inputs and outputs we evaluate by means of mathematical programming formulations the relative technical and scale efficiencies of decision making units dmus when some of the inputs or outputs are exogenously fixed and beyond the discretionary control of dmu managers this approach further develops the work on efficiency evaluation and on estimation of efficient production frontiers known as data envelopment analysis dea we also employ the model to provide efficient input and output targets for dmu managers in a way that specifically accounts for the fixed nature of some of the inputs or outputs we illustrate the approach using real data for a network of fast food restaurants

racial and ethnic economic inequality the international record international racial and ethnic economic inequality is examined the international record shows disparity across nations and regions between racial and ethnic groups within countries and within groups in the same country subalternate racial and ethnic populations whether in the majority or minority suffer remarkably similar economic outcomes across the globe institutional racism and cultural discrimination affect subcultures and different classes in multiple ways in every country those who get the short stick continue to face poor prospects for economic inclusion and justice

what is the cost of a renewable energy based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation energy policies for greenhouse gas ghg mitigation in the united states have set sector specific standards such as the renewable fuel standard rfs and the renewable portfolio standard rps for the transportation and the electricity sectors respectively this paper examines the welfare costs and effectiveness of ghg abatement with these policies and compares them with those under a carbon tax normalized to achieve the same level of abatement over the 2007 2030 period we show that the global welfare cost per ton of ghg abatement with the rfs and rps is 171 while with the carbon tax it is 7

pricing and congestion economic principles relevant to pricing roads u k expenditures on roads or road costs average l4 34 billion per year from the 24 6 million vehicles registered road taxes of l12 7 billion were collected 2 9 times road costs from 1978 88 the average daily traffic on each km of road rose by 34 percent with a consequent serious increase in congestion road space is a valuable and scarce resource and road users should logically pay the marginal social cost if they are to make efficient transport and location decisions the paper estimates these costs and the appropriate charges for britain and identifies the major policy issues total road charges ignoring hard to quantify accident costs should yield l13 8 billion of which congestion charges would be l12 8 billion though close to road taxes in total amount replacing current taxes by road pricing would reduce congestion improve public transport and avoid perverse consequences from road expansion copyright 1990 by oxford university press

the human development index yet another redundant composite development indicator abstract in its human development report 1990 the united nations development program undp proposes yet another composite indicator of development levels the human development index hdi the hdi assesses intercountry development levels on the basis of three so called deprivation indicators life expectancy adult literacy and the logarithm of purchasing power adjusted per capita gdp using simple statistical analysis this paper questions both the composition of the hdi and its usefulness as a new index of development it concludes that the hdi is both flawed in its composition and like a number of its predecessors fails to provide insights into intercountry development level comparisons which preexisting indicators including gnp per capita alone cannot

economic distance and the survival of foreign direct investments taking a theoretical perspective contrasting resource exploitation with resource exploration we argue that foreign direct investments fdis hazard rates are lower in countries that are either m

marginal tax reform externalities and income distribution the paper examines welfare improving and revenue neutral directions marginal policy reforms for an economy with nonidentical individuals and an externality that has a feedback effect on the consumption of taxed goods it considers three types of policy instruments the indirect taxes the uniform poll transfer and public abatement this extends the framework set up by ahmad and stern 1984 bovenberg and de mooij 1994 and schob 1996 the theoretical model is illustrated for a specific externality namely congestion caused by peak car transport

environmental policy public finance and the labour market in a second best world abstract environmental and tax policies and the optimal provision of clean and dirty public goods are analysed within the context of a second best framework of optimal taxation households consume both clean and dirty commodities degradation of the natural environment occurs due to the consumption of dirty private and public goods but can be offset when the government engages in abatement activities increased environmental concern implies a higher dirt tax a lower tax on labour less employment more public abatement and a cleaner environment if the elasticity of substitution between private consumption commodities and leisure is large and that between clean and dirty goods is small public consumption may expand while private consumption contracts otherwise public consumption falls

can personal gasoline permit trading be effective an investigation into permit demand this study proposes a personal gasoline permit trading scheme to limit the total gasoline consumption thus reducing its environmental impact we studied the effectiveness of this scheme by analyzing the permit demand of a gasoline driven vehicle in transportation sector a general utility optimization model is formulated and a cobb douglas utility function is further assumed to analyze the response of permit demand to its price changes with the slutsky decomposition of price effects the results when defined in economic terms indicate that the permit demand of consumers in higher income groups are negatively related to permit price permit demand are also negatively related to permit price for consumers in medium income groups but with positive income effect and the direct relationship between permit demand of lower income groups and the price is defined as a giffen good effect that is for those low income groups when the permit price rises their demand for permits would also increase then us and singapore household expenditure data are used to show comparable results of a pilot personal gasoline permit trading scheme further some regulations on critical parameters such as permit allocation and permit prices in the policy design are proposed to make the scheme feasible in different income groups based on these results implications limitation and suggestions for future study are discussed

intergroup disparity economic theory and social science evidence consider a hypothetical community where two groups are distinguished by an ascriptive characteristic or a set of ascriptive characteristics that are understood as separating markers by the members of each of the groups indeed the distinguishing characteristics may be recognized by others external to the two groups or external to the community furthermore these separating markers are associated with the social categories of race or ethnicity credible surveys taken by researchers reveal that on average the members of the two groups experience widely distinct economic outcomes members of group a are found to have significantly lower earnings a higher incidence of unemployment less prestigious occupations lower levels of total income and substantially lower levels of wealth than members of group b conventional economics offers two major explanations for the observed disparity between groups a and b first average productivity linked endowments or a human capital gap correlate strongly with membership in each of these ascriptively bounded groups producing the differences in outcome the origins of these background differences have been attributed to a variety of causes the four most prominent reasons offered for the wedge in human capital acquisition have been i an unequal allocation of social resources across the two groups ii the intergenerational transmission of past disadvantage or advantage across the groups iii somewhat invidiously cultural differences between the groups and iv most invidiously genetic differences between the groups that generate not only the ascriptive distinctions but also differences in intelligence and motivation second at any moment members of each group with given productivity linked characteristics can be confronted with differential treatment of those characteristics in markets especially labor markets in short conventional theory suggests that the observed gap in outcomes could be due to discrimination against group a and nepotism on behalf of group b

a literature study for dea applied to energy and environment abstract this study systematically summarizes previous research efforts on data envelopment analysis dea applied to energy and environment in the past four decades including concepts and methodologies on dea environmental assessment industrial developments are very important for all nations in terms of their economic prosperities a problem is that the development produces various pollutions on air water and other types of contaminations all of which are usually associated with our health problems and climate changes thus it is necessary for us to consider how to make a balance between economic success and pollution mitigation to maintain a high level of social sustainability in the world it is widely considered that dea is one of the methodologies to examine the level of sustainability this study examines a recent research trend on dea applications from 1980s to 2010s nowadays many researchers have paid serious attention on how to combat various difficulties in the areas of energy and environment as a result the number of articles on dea applications on energy and environment has dramatically increased particularly after 2000s however it is true that dea has strengths and drawbacks in the applications therefore it is very important for us to carefully use dea for guiding large policy issues and business strategies such as the global warming and climate change an underlying premise of this study is that technology innovation in engineering and natural science may solve various problems by linking it with political and managerial efforts the use of dea provides a methodological linkage among them so enhancing the practicality in mitigating problems due to climate change and environmental pollutions this literature study along with a summary on conceptual and methodological developments provides us with guidelines for our future research works on dea on energy and environment issues

alternative measures of environmental technology structure in dea an application abstract the nonparametric data envelopment analysis dea literature on environmental efficiency ee considers handling undesirable outputs in two alternative ways either in their original forms with the assumption that these are weakly disposable or in various translated forms with the assumption that these are strongly disposable choosing a particular approach implies adoption of a particular distinct treatment of undesirable outputs and hence yields a distinct set of ee estimates to explore the effects of the interplay between choice of ee measure and specific treatment of undesirable outputs this paper attempts to generate all possible output oriented ee measures based on these two alternative approaches furthermore guided by the argument that slacks are important in identifying properly the efficiency behavior of firms it proposes two new alternative slacks based formulations of ee one based on the range directional model and the other on the generalized proportional distance function model using a confected data set of ten firms and a real life data set of 22 oecd countries our empirical analysis reveals that first ee scores are influenced not only by the choice of disposability assumption for undesirable outputs but also by the way these are treated in various translated forms second the choice of any particular treatment of undesirable outputs plays no role in influencing the rankings of firms and third our two new alternative ee formulations are at the least viable alternatives to existing ee measures in ranking firms according to their eco efficiency behavior

discounting and distributional considerations in the context of global warming the economics of global warming is reviewed with special emphasis on how the cost depends on the discount rate and on how costs in poor and rich regions are aggregated into a global cost estimate both of these factors depend on the assumptions made concerning the underlying utility and welfare functions it is common to aggregate welfare gains and losses across generations and countries as if the utility of money were constant but it is not if we assume that a e co2 equivalent dlubling implies costs equal to 1 5 of the income in both high and low income countries a pure rate of time preference equal to zero and a utility function which is logarithmic in income then the marginal cost of co2 emissions is estimated at 260 590 usd ton c for a time horizon in the range 300 1000 years an estimate which is large enough to justify significant reductions of co2 emissions on purely economic grounds the estimate is approximately 50 100 times larger than the estimate made by nordhaus in his dice model and the difference is almost completely due to the choice of discount rate and the weight given to the costs in the developing world as well as a more accurate model of the carbon cycle finally the sensitivity of the marginal cost estimate with respect to several parameters is analyzed

the social cost of carbon and its policy implications the shadow price or social cost of carbon is an important indicator of the global incremental damage done by emitting greenhouse gases today cost benefit analysis would set the optimal amount of greenhouse gas emission reduction at the point where this social cost just equals the incremental cost of controlling emissions the higher the value for the social cost of carbon the more control is warranted this comparison assumes that cost benefit analysis is the correct way of determining climate change policy and many believe this is not the case because of the very long term irreversible and potentially catastrophic nature of global warming but in the short run at least a comparison of cost and benefits is required and in any event all decisions imply costs and benefits but what is the right figure for the social cost of carbon this paper reviews the uk government s assessment of the cost and concludes that it has been set far too high because of a misreading of the integrated assessment models used to balance costs and benefits moreover adoption of the uk government s shadow price would have formidable implications for energy policy in the uk and for policies on afforestation copyright 2003 oxford university press

a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency an application on oecd countries the role of the environment is an important issue in policy making andthe accurate assessment of the environmental conditions is vital inthis paper using nonparametric techniques an environmental efficiencyindex is developed for each of the oecd countries these indexes allowone both to do cross section comparisons on the state of each country sproduction process in its treatment of undesirable outputs and also totrace each country s modification of their production processesovertime furthermore in this study we investigate the factorsunderlying societies environmental concerns that eventually lead tochanges in the environmental efficiency the results provide furtherempirical evidence for the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis

radial and non radial approaches for environmental assessment by data envelopment analysis corporate sustainability and effective investment for technology innovation abstract environmental assessment and protection are important concerns in modern business consumers are interested in corporate effort and investment for environmental protection it can be easily imagined that they avoid purchasing products from dirty imaged companies even if their prices are much less than the ones produced by green imaged companies a green image is recently a very important concern for corporate survivability in a competitive global market by extending previous works on environment assessment and corporate sustainability where companies need to consider both economic prosperity and pollution prevention in their operations this study discusses a new use of data envelopment analysis dea for environmental assessment by utilizing its radial and non radial measurements the proposed radial and non radial approaches may guide corporate leaders managers and policy makers by providing not only quantitative assessment on their efforts for environmental protection but also information regarding how to invest for technology innovation on abatement of undesirable outputs the empirical investigation identifies that the green investment in u s energy industry is useful for improving its unified operational and environmental performance if operational performance is measured by roa return on assets and an amount of co 2 emission reduction because the industry is the largest emitter among seven industry sectors examined in this study the green investment makes it possible that firms can increase their net incomes by a good corporate image however if the financial measure is replaced by a corporate value i e tobin s q ratio mainly measured by stock price the energy industry does not exhibit the best investment opportunity because the effect of green investment is limited on enhancing its corporate value the energy industry is a very large process industry so that the green investment does not immediately increase its corporate value as found in the other industrial sectors such as information technology industry

a review of low carbon fuel policies principles program status and future directions a low carbon fuel standard lcfs is a market based policy that specifies declining standards for the average lifecycle fuel carbon intensity afci of transportation fuels sold in a region this paper i compares transportation fuel carbon policies in terms of their economic efficiency fuel price impacts greenhouse gas emission reductions and incentives for innovation ii discusses key regulatory design features of lcfs policies and iii provides an update on the implementation status of lcfs policies in california the european union british columbia and oregon the economics literature finds that an intensity standard implicitly taxes emissions and subsidizes output the output subsidy results in an intensity standard being inferior to a carbon tax in a first best world although the inefficiency can be corrected with a properly designed consumption tax or mitigated by a properly designed carbon tax or cap and trade program in california from 2011 to 2015 the share of alternative fuels in the regulated transportation fuels pool increased by 30 and the reported afci of all alternative fuels declined 21 lcfs credit prices have varied considerably rising to above 100 credit in the first half of 2016 lcfs programs in other jurisdictions share many features with california s but have distinct provisions as well c 2016 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

optimal taxation of car ownership car use and public transport insights derived from a discrete choice numerical optimization model in this paper we study the taxation of car ownership car use and public transport in the presence of externalities within the framework of a discrete continuous choice model we first derive optimal taxes in a simplified setting emphasizing the specific role of fixed car ownership taxes and the relevance of public transport demand by non car owners for the optimal tax structure a numerical optimisation model is then constructed to study welfareoptimal public transport fares and two part tariffs on ownership and use of gasoline and diesel cars in belgium results are as follows first we find that the current differences in tax treatment between diesel and gasoline car ownership and use cannot be justified on the basis of external cost and budgetary considerations efficient pricing requires substantial increases in the relative user tax on diesel cars as compared to gasoline cars optimal fixed taxes are substantially below current levels and only marginally differ between car fuel types second if for political or technical reasons variable car taxes cannot be optimally adjusted large differences in fixed car taxes do result the same holds if the government uses kilometre taxes as the main variable tax instrument third the results of a series of marginal tax reform exercises suggest that a shift form gasoline towards diesel taxation is welfare improving both for fixed and variable taxes somewhat surprisingly a shift from fixed towards variable taxes is not necessarily welfare improving it is for diesel but not for gasoline cars

optimal gasoline tax in developing oil producing countries the case of mexico this paper uses the methodology of parry and small 2005 to estimate the optimal gasoline tax for a less developed oil producing country the relevance of the estimation relies on the differences between less developed countries ldcs and industrial countries we argue that lawless roads general subsidies on gasoline poor mass transportation systems older vehicle fleets and unregulated city growth make the tax rates in ldcs differ substantially from the rates in the developed world we find that the optimal gasoline tax is 1 90 per gallon at 2011 prices and show that the estimate differences are in line with the factors hypothesized in contrast to the existing literature on industrial countries we show that the relative gasoline tax incidence may be progressive in mexico and more generally in ldcs

environmentally sensitive productivity growth a global analysis using malmquist luenberger index abstract we examine conventional and environmentally sensitive total factor productivity tfp in 41 developed and developing countries over the period of 1971 to 1992 due to the non availability of reliable input and co 2 emissions price data the study uses directional distance function to derive malmquist luenberger ml productivity index the index allows us to decompose the tfp into measures of technical and efficiency changes dea is used to compute the directional distance functions we find that tfp index value is not different when we account for the co 2 emissions relative to the situation when they are freely disposable but for the components of tfp change technical and efficiency changes the null hypothesis of whether the indexes are the same under two different scenarios cannot be accepted issues of catch up and convergence or in some cases possible divergence in productivity are examined within a global framework the paper also studies the impact of openness on conventional and environmentally sensitive measures of productivity

how should heavy duty trucks be taxed abstract this paper develops and implements an analytical framework for estimating optimal taxes on the fuel use and mileage of heavy duty trucks in the united states accounting for external costs from congestion accidents pavement damage noise energy security and local and global pollution the analysis allows for endogenous fuel economy increased auto travel in response to reduced truck congestion and distinguishes driving by truck type and region we estimate the optimal second best diesel fuel tax at 1 12 per gallon and implementing it increases welfare by 1 34 billion per annum optimizing over both fuel and mileage taxes and differentiating mileage taxes by vehicle type and region yields progressively higher welfare gains the most efficient tax structure involves a diesel fuel tax of 69 cents per gallon and charges on trucks that vary between 7 and 33 cents per mile implementing this tax structure yields estimated welfare gains of 2 06 billion

multi objective regulations on transportation fuels comparing renewable fuel mandates and emission standards 2015 elsevier b v we compare two types of fuel market regulations a renewable fuel mandate and a fuel emission standard that could be employed to simultaneously achieve multiple outcomes such as reduction in fuel prices fuel imports and greenhouse gas ghg emissions we compare these two types of regulations in a global context taking into account heterogeneity in carbon content of both fossil fuels and renewable fuels we find that although neither the ethanol mandate nor the emission standard is certain to reduce emissions relative to a business as usual baseline at any given level of biofuel consumption in the policy region a mandate relative to an emission standard results in higher ghg emissions smaller expenditure on fuel imports lower price of ethanol blended gasoline and higher domestic fuel market surplus this result holds over a wide range of values of model parameters we also discuss the implications of this result to a regulation such as the us renewable fuel standard given recent developments within the us such as increase in shale and tight oil production and large increase in average vehicle fuel economy of the automotive fleet

does britain or the united states have the right gasoline tax this paper develops an analytical framework to assess the second best optimal level of gasoline taxation taking into account unpriced pollution congestion and accident externalities as well as interactions with the broader fiscal system we provide calculations of the optimal taxes for the us and the uk under a variety of parameter scenarios under our central parameter values the second best optimal gasoline tax is 1 01 gal for the us and 1 34 gal for the uk current tax rates are much lower than this in the us and higher in the uk the calculations are moderately sensitive to alternative parameter assumptions the congestion externality is the largest component in both nations revenue raising needs also play a significant role as do accident externalities and local air pollution potential welfare gains from reducing the current uk tax rate are estimated at nearly one fourth the production cost of all gasoline used in the uk even larger gains could be achieved by switching to a tax on vehicle miles with equal revenue yield for the us the welfare gains from optimizing the gasoline tax are smaller but those from switching to an optimal tax on vehicle miles are very large

effective tax rates in macroeconomics cross country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption abstract this paper proposes a method for computing tax rates using national accounts and revenue statistics using this method we construct time series of tax rates for large industrial countries the method identifies the revenue raised by different taxes at the general government level and defines aggregate measures of the corresponding tax bases this method yields estimates of effective tax rates on factor incomes and consumption consistent with the tax distortions faced by a representative agent in a general equilibrium framework these tax rates compare favorably with existing estimates of marginal tax rates and highlight important international differences in tax policy

modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation abstract data envelopment analysis dea measures the relative efficiency of decision making units dmus with multiple performance factors which are grouped into outputs and inputs once the efficient frontier is determined inefficient dmus can improve their performance to reach the efficient frontier by either increasing their current output levels or decreasing their current input levels however both desirable good and undesirable bad factors may be present for example if inefficiency exists in production processes where final products are manufactured with a production of wastes and pollutants the outputs of wastes and pollutants are undesirable and should be reduced to improve the performance using the classification invariance property we show that the standard dea model can be used to improve the performance via increasing the desirable outputs and decreasing the undesirable outputs the method can also be applied to situations when some inputs need to be increased to improve the performance the linearity and convexity of dea are preserved through our proposal

comparing the efficiency of alternative policies for reducing traffic congestion abstract this paper compares the efficiency of a single lane toll a uniform congestion tax across freeway lanes a gasoline tax and a transit fare subsidy at reducing congestion there are three conditions for an efficient outcome relating to travel across modes across peak and off peak periods and sorting out drivers with high and low time costs across faster and slower freeway lanes each policy involves some inefficiency indeed the single lane toll gasoline tax and transit subsidy forego at least two thirds of the efficiency gains under an ideal congestion tax that varies across lanes however the uniform congestion tax achieves over 90 of these gains

when should drivers be encouraged to carpool in hov lanes policies to encourage carpooling in high occupancy vehicle hov lanes have been adopted in the united states to lower congestion and reduce air pollution we analytically model highway congestion and other vehicle related externalities encouraging carpooling decreases total costs when congestion relief in mainline lanes outweighs increased hov lane congestion importantly entry of new drivers via induced demand can negate the benefits of increased carpooling using 10 years of traffic data from los angeles we estimate time and route specific marginal external costs because costs vary substantially across routes hours and days current policies to promote carpooling will often increase social costs jel r41 r48 q53

a two stage dea approach for quantifying and analysing the inefficiency of conventional and organic rain fed cereals in spain abstract this paper assesses the efficiency of rain fed cereals crops grown in southern spain the proposed approach uses a two stage data envelopment analysis dea plus regression approach in the first stage a slacks based inefficiency sbi dea model is used to project conventional and organic cropping systems onto the efficient frontier the results of the efficiency analysis show that conventional production is more inefficient than organic production and that the main sources of inefficiency in the case of conventional production correspond to excessive input consumption and ghg emissions in the case of organic production the inefficiency comes from output shortfalls it is shown that reducing inefficiency would reduce the amount of ghg emitted per unit of fresh matter yielded this potential gain is more pronounced in the case of conventional production but also occurs for organic production in the second stage the crops efficiency scores are regressed against some exogenous variables using a fractional regression model the regression results confirm that organic production significantly decreases inefficiency and they also indicate that the larger the farm the larger the inefficiency and that growing barley is more inefficient than wheat

to rebate or not to rebate fuel economy standards versus feebates we compare the welfare effects in equilibrium of two environmental regulations that aim at increasing the new cars fleet s average fuel efficiency the fuel economy standards and the feebate policies maintaining the same environmental benefit and tax revenue we simulate the implementation of each policy in france and the united states standard type policies have larger negative welfare effects up to 3 2 times those from the feebate effects on manufacturers are heterogeneous some are better of under the standard regulation the addition of a market to trade levels of fuel efficiency dominates the simple standard regulation but not always the feebate we also consider the attribute based standard technological improvements and the equivalence with fuel taxes as extensions

household adjustment to gasoline price change an analysis using 9 years of us survey data this paper examines the dynamics and composition of household adjustment to changes in the real price of gasoline using a panel of us households by decomposing the demand for gasoline into the demand for vehicle miles traveled and the demand for household composite miles per gallon we are able to add rich detail to the description of how households respond to gasoline price changes while obtaining total price elasticity estimates well within the range found in the literature we find that consumers initially respond to a price rise with a much larger decrease in consumption than would be indicated by the total elasticity in addition households respond to price changes by adjusting vehicle miles traveled more than composite miles per gallon in the year after a price change

the theory of reform and indian indirect taxes abstract given a set of value judgements an initial state and a model of the economy one can ask whether some feasible tax change would increase welfare we do this by defining the marginal cost in terms of welfare of raising an extra rupee from the i th good the inverse optimum problem is the calculation of non negative welfare weights on households which imply that the initial state is optimum if no such welfare weights exist then a pareto improvement is possible we illustrate the concepts and results using data from the indian economy for 1979 1980 directions of tax reform for a number of specific social welfare functions and for pareto improvements are presented

non parametric frontier approach to modelling the relationships among population gdp energy consumption and co2 emissions abstract in this paper a non parametric approach based in data envelopment analysis dea is proposed as an alternative to the kaya identity a k a impact this frontier method identifies and extends existing best practices population and gdp are considered as input and output respectively both primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas ghg emissions are considered as undesirable outputs several linear programming models are formulated with different aims namely a determine efficiency levels b estimate maximum gdp compatible with given levels of population energy intensity and carbonization intensity and c estimate the minimum level of ghg emissions compatible with given levels of population gdp energy intensity or carbonization index the united states of america case is used as illustration of the proposed approach

biofuel subsidies versus the gas tax the carrot or the stick abstract this paper provides an analytical framework to examine the relative efficiencies of a revenue neutral biofuel subsidy and a gas tax in the presence of pre existing distortions and growing substitutability between fuels both policies are set to achieve a targeted reduction in gasoline use at the state level the model is then calibrated for a small open economy such as illinois which is one of the largest producers of biofuels such as ethanol in the u s the main result of the paper shows that raising the biofuel subsidy use reduces overall welfare by more than a higher gas tax both aimed to achieve a targeted reduction in pure gasoline the relative efficiency of the higher gas tax is primarily due to it exacerbating the pre existing distortion in the biofuel market by less than the subsidy moreover for current parameter estimates welfare improving policy combinations for achieving a targeted amount of energy security are higher gas taxes combined with lower biofuel subsidies and a lower tax on income however the preference for a gasoline labor tax swap shrinks as the elasticity of substitution between the two fuels rises

economic insights required for using lifecycle analysis for policy decisions we develop an analytic and numerical model that integrates land food and fuel markets and is linked with a sectoral emissions model to examine how the amount of biofuel in the economy impacts the lifecycle emissions of a biofuel under different policies our central finding is that the change in ghg emissions due to a unit expansion in biofuel will vary dramatically in the amount of biofuel in the economy and with the policy driving the expansion the emissions from a unit expansion in corn ethanol due to a blend mandate fall from 12 gco2e mj to 3 gco2e mj as the quantity of ethanol in the economy increases from 6 to 15 billion gallons for an input subsidy emissions due to a unit of ethanol increase from 15 gco2e mj to 26 gco2e mj over the same increase in ethanol we discuss the implications of these results for lifecycle analysis

non parametric efficiency progress and regress measures for panel data methodological aspects this purely methodological paper deals with the role of time in non parametric efficiency analysis using both fdh and dea technologies it first shows how each observation in a panel can be characterized in efficiency terms vis a vis three different kinds of frontiers i contemporaneous ii sequential and iii intertemporal these are then compared with window analysis next frontier shifts outward and inward interpreted as progress or regress are considered for the two kinds of technologies and computational methods are described in detail for evaluating such shifts in either case these are also contrasted with what is measured by the malmquist productivity index finally an alternative way of identifying progress and regress independent of the frontier notion and referring instead to some benchmark notion is extended here to panel data

intergroup economic inequality in south africa the post apartheid era one of the most pressing challenges facing the south african government is how to expand the overall opportunity set for nonwhites who have been historically disadvantaged by apartheid this is perhaps best accomplished by expanding employment opportunities within the economy general employment expansion mnust be accomplished keeping in mind the urgent need to radically expand nonwhite employment employment and unemployment statistics are difficult to interpret but there is a general sense that the unemployment situation especially for nonwhites is extremely bad in dealing with employment issues two concerns must be faced both are legacies of the apartheid era the first is related to differences in educational attainment across racial groups during apartheid the bantu education policy was designed to suppress the educational attainment of africans blacks relative to whites however educational opportunities for coloureds mixed race and asians primarily indian were also depressed relative to whites the second concern is that labor market discrimination could be used either to exclude nonwhites for employment consideration or to limit their wages and opportunities once they are employed for policy reasons it is imperative to understand the extent to which premarket or market factors operate to limit opportunities for nonwhites given the institutionalized nature of apartheid segregation one can imagine three scenarios earnings differences could be the result entirely of premarket factors such as education differences alternatively earnings differences could be the result of labor market practices that limit one group s eamings relative to another s a third scenario a synthesis of the former two would find earnings differences to be the result of a combination of premarket differentials and in market discrimination to address premarket discrimination policy would focus entirely on leveling funding and increasing access to educational opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups however legislative forms such as affirmative action would be required to remedy exclusively labormarket discrimination a combination of these policies would be required to deal with the third scenario understanding the relative importance of these factors is important when resource allocation is considered this paper concerns itself with measuring income losses to nonwhites from labor market discrimination to evaluate the extent of labor market discrimination ordinary least squares ols estimates of earnings equations are evaluated for males in each population group observed wage differentials are decomposed into a component attributable to human capital differences while a residual is attributed to labor markelt discrimination these findings are then contrasted to those of others to give a sense of the trend in market discrimination in south africa

thousands of models one story current account imbalances in the global economy the global financial crisis has led to a revival of the empirical literature on current account imbalances this paper contributes to that literature by investigating the importance of evaluating model and parameter uncertainty prior to reaching any firm conclusion we explore three alternative econometric strategies examining all models selecting a few and combining them all out of thousands or indeed millions of models a story emerges the chance that current accounts were aligned with fundamentals prior to the financial crisis appears to be minimal

analysing gasoline demand elasticities a survey this paper is a survey of studies on gasoline demand although there are very many dxerent studies in this eld which sometimes appear to arrive at contradictory results we find that with proper stratification of studies by model and data type much of the contict turns to consensus in this survey we classtfy studies by data type and by ten d erent categories of model and with the exception of estimates on seasonal data which tend to be unstable and of certain inappropriate model formulations we find a fair degree of agreement concerning average short run and even long run income and price elasticities

economists views about parameters values and policies survey results in labor and public economics specialists in labor economics and public economics at 40 leading research universities provided opinions of policy proposals quantitative best estimates and 95 percent confidence intervals for economic parameters and answers to values questions regarding income redistribution efficiency versus equity and individual versus social responsibility their positions on policy are more closely related to their values than to their estimates of relevant economic parameters average best estimates of the economic parameters agree well with the relevant literature but individual best estimates are usually widely dispersed the individual 95 percent confidence intervals are much narrower than the substantial cross respondent variation in estimates would warrant

field experiments of discrimination in the market place controlled experiments using matched pairs of bogus transactors to test for discrimination in the marketplace have been conducted for over 30 years and have extended across 10 countries significant persistent and pervasive levels of discrimination have been found against non whites and women in labour housing and product markets rates of employment discrimination against non whites in excess of 25 have been measured in australia europe and north america a small number of experiments have also investigated employment discrimination against the disabled in britain and the netherlands and against older applicants in the united states

optimal taxes and the structure of preferences if optimal tax theory is to be the basis for calculating tax rates a close understanding is required of the relationship between the structure of preferences and the configuration of optimal tax rates otherwise hypotheses chosen by the econometrician for practical convenience may completely determine the results independently of measurement this paper explores the relationship between various types of separability particularly weak and implicit separability and optimal tax rates in the various models discussed in the literature the use of distance functions and the antonelli matrix provides a significant unification of previously disparate results in the final analysis optimal tax theory should be the basis for actual calculation of tax rates although recently there have been great advances in theoretical results and in our understanding of their meaning we are still some way from a working knowledge of whether uniform commodity taxes are in practice optimal or if not which commodities should be discriminated against present theoretical formulae do not yield clear cut results except in special cases and it has recently become clear that optimal rates depend crucially on the detailed structure of consumer preferences for example atkinson and stiglitz 3 show that with an optimal nonlinear income tax discriminatory commodity taxes are only necessary to the extent that individual commodities are not weakly separable from leisure more recently deaton 6 has shown that a similar result holds for what is perhaps the most interesting of the standard models that where there are many consumers and only a linear income tax and proportional commodity taxes are allowed in this case separability between goods and leisure together with linear engel curves for goods removes the need for differential commodity taxation in consequence nothing can be learned about commodity taxes from consumer demand studies in which commodity demands are explained conditionally on total expenditure and commodity prices and which assume linear engel curves all such studies require separability from leisure as a maintained hypothesis and so are consistent with uniform commodity taxation these results suggest that the prospects for meaningful empirical calculations of tax rates are bleak econometricians estimating commodity demand and labor supply equations make generous use of separability assumptions to enable estimation at all in consequence it is likely that empirically calculated tax rates based on econometric estimates of parameters will be determined in structure not by the measurements actually made but by arbitrary untested and even unconscious hypotheses chosen by the econometrician for practical convenience to remedy this situation and as a prelude to fruitful empirical work it is necessary to have a more explicit understanding of how preference structure affects optimal tax rates such is the object of this paper three different

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

does foreign direct investment promote growth exploring the role of financial markets on linkages abstract do multinational companies generate positive externalities for the host country the evidence so far is mixed varying from beneficial to detrimental effects of foreign direct investment fdi on growth with many studies that find no effect in order to provide an explanation for this empirical ambiguity we formalize a mechanism that emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling fdi to promote growth through backward linkages using realistic parameter values we quantify the response of growth to fdi and show that an increase in the share of fdi leads to higher additional growth in financially developed economies relative to financially under developed ones

biofuel economics in a setting of multiple objectives unintended consequences this paper examines biofuels from an economic perspective and evaluates the merits of promoting biofuel production in the context of the policies multiple objectives life cycle implications pecuniary externalities and other unintended consequences the policy goals most often cited are to reduce fossil fuel use and to lower greenhouse gas emissions but the presence of multiple objectives and various indirect effects complicates normative evaluation to address some of these complicating factors we look at a several combinations of policy alternatives that achieve the same set of incremental gains along the two primary targeted policy dimensions making it possible to compare the costs and cost effectiveness of each combination of policies for example when this approach is applied to u s produced biofuels they are found to be 14 31 times as costly as alternatives like raising the gas tax or promoting energy efficiency improvements the analysis also finds the scale of the potential contributions of biofuels to be extremely small in both the u s and eu mandated u s corn ethanol production for 2025 reduces u s petroleum input use by 1 75 and would have negligible net effects on co2 emissions and although eu imports of brazilian ethanol may look better given the high costs of other alternatives this option is equivalent at most to a 1 20 reduction in eu gasoline consumption

foreign direct investment in oecd countries a special focus in the case of greece foreign direct investment fdi is considered as an important instrument for economic development all over the world the aim of this paper is to examine the fdi inflows determinants for 24 oecd co

impacts of ethanol policy on corn prices a review and meta analysis of recent evidence abstract the literature on the impacts of biofuels on agricultural commodity prices is characterized by contradictory findings we review studies published between 2007 and 2014 that estimate the effects of u s corn ethanol policy on corn prices and find estimates ranging from nil to over 80 such divergent results make it difficult to assess the merits of alternative biofuel policies to bring more clarity to the issue and facilitate comparisons across studies we assemble a database of over 150 medium to long run estimates of the effect of corn ethanol production on corn prices from 29 published studies we first normalize corn price impacts by the change in corn ethanol volume to control for the large differences in ethanol quantities across scenarios we then conduct a meta analysis to identify the factors that drive the remaining variation in corn price impacts across studies in addition to ethanol volumes we find that modeling framework projection year inclusion of ethanol co products and biofuel production from other feedstocks explain much of the differences in price effects the results indicate that a one billion gallon expansion of the us corn ethanol mandate in the year 2015 would lead to a three to four percent increase in corn prices with smaller price changes projected in future years

environmental tax interactions when pollution affects health or productivity abstract recent studies indicate that interactions with the tax distorted labor market increase the cost of pollution regulation however these studies make restrictive assumptions regarding preferences and ignore key links between pollution human health and labor productivity together these assumptions imply that pollution does not affect labor supply this paper develops an analytical general equilibrium model that considers several potential benefits from reduced pollution including improved health or productivity it shows that these benefits affect labor supply and thus create a benefit side tax interaction effect that can be of the same magnitude as the familiar cost side interaction when reduced pollution boosts labor productivity the effect substantially magnifies such benefits in contrast when pollution affects consumer health the effect tends to diminish the benefits of reduced pollution the paper considers only environmental regulation but these concepts apply equally to other policies affecting productivity or health such as research subsidies or occupational safety regulations

toward an optimal u s ethanol fuel subsidy abstract enhanced environmental quality fuel security and economic development along with reduced prices of ethanol gasoline blends are often used as justifications for the u s federal excise tax exemption on ethanol fuels however the possible effect of increased overall consumption of fuel in response to lower total price mitigating the environmental and fuel security benefits are generally not considered taking this price response into account the optimal u s ethanol subsidy is derived estimated values of the optimal subsidy reveal that the subsidy s environmental and security benefits are questionable however positive environmental and security benefits from the ethanol tax exemption subsidy may be obtained if the subsidy is combined with an increase in the excise tax on gasoline

weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis with undesirable outputs environmental economics and natural resources group at wageningen university in the netherlands weak disposability of outputs means that firms can abate harmful emissions by decreasing the activity level modeling weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis has caused some confusion this article identifies a dilemma in these approaches conventional formulations implicitly and unintentionally assume all firms apply uniform abatement factors however it is usually cost effective to abate emissions in those firms where the marginal abatement costs are lowest this article presents a simple formulation of weak disposability that allows for non uniform abatement factors and preserves the linear structure of the model

renewable energy policies and competition for biomass implications for land use food prices and processing industry abstract we use a mathematical programming model to examine the impacts of simultaneous implementation of two us biofuel and bioenergy policies on commodity markets and spatial distribution of future cellulosic biorefineries the key findings based on our numerical simulation are 1 the number and average annual production capacity of cellulosic biofuel refineries depend on the total renewable fuels mandate 2 the mix of cellulosic biomass feedstock depends on the assumptions about the production costs of energy crops and the amount of cropland that can be used for energy crops but regardless of the assumptions crop residues are the primary biomass source to meet the demand for biomass for biofuel production and electricity generation and 3 the biomass production areas would surround either future cellulosic biorefineries or the existing coal based power plants to reduce the costs of biomass transportation these findings have important implications for biorefinery investors and provide valuable policy insights for the selection of biomass crop assistance program project areas

comparing alternative policies to reduce traffic accidents abstract this paper derives and implements formulas for the welfare effects of uniform mileage taxes gasoline taxes per mile insurance premiums and mileage taxes differentiated across vehicle and driver groups for reducing the external costs of passenger vehicle accidents the average external accident cost is estimated at 2 2 6 6 cents per mile accidents costs differ substantially across driver groups but only moderately across vehicles groups annual welfare gains from a mileage tax equal to marginal external costs for each driver vehicle group are 9 4 billion in the benchmark case the uniform mileage tax and per mile insurance reform can achieve 76 and 65 of this welfare gain respectively while the gasoline tax can achieve only 28 of the welfare gain unlike other policies the gasoline tax induces costly improvements in average fleet fuel economy that have little effect on reducing external costs

automobile externalities and policies this paper discusses the nature and magnitude of externalities associated with automobile use including local and global pollution oil dependence traffic congestion and traffic accidents it then discusses current federal policies affecting these externalities including fuel taxes fuel economy and emissions standards and alternative fuel policies summarizing insofar as possible the welfare effects of those policies finally we discuss emerging pricing policies including congestion tolls and insurance reform and summarize the appropriate combination of policies to address automobile externalities

revenue recycling and the welfare effects of road pricing the authors explore the interaction between taxes on work related traffic congestion and preexisting distortionary taxes in the labor market a congestion tax raises the overall costs of commuting to work and discourages labor force participation at the margin when revenues are returned in lump sum transfers the resulting efficiency loss in the labor market can be larger that the pigouvian efficiency gains from internalizing the congestion externality by contrast if congestion tax revenues are used to reduce labor taxes the net impact on the labor supply is positive and the efficiency gain in the labor market can raise the overall welfare gains of the congestion tax by as much as 100 percent recycling congestion tax revenues in public transit subsidies produces a positive but smaller impact on the labor supply in short the authors results indicate that the presence of preexisting tax distortions and the form of revenue recycling can crucially affect the size and possibly even the sign of the welfare effect of road pricing schemes the efficiency gains from recycling congestion tax revenues in other tax reductions can amount to several times the pigouvian welfare gains from congestion reduction

revenue raising vs other approaches to environmental protection the critical significance of pre existing tax distortions using analytical and numerical general equilibrium models we show that preexisting factor taxes produce a tax interaction effect that increases the costs of pollution taxes and quotas under policies that raise revenue and recycle it through cuts in marginal factor tax rates this effect is partially offset by a revenue recycling effect grandfathered pollution quotas such as those used under the 1990 clean air act amendments to regulate electric utilities so2 emissions do not benefit from this offset preexisting taxes raise this regulation s cost by over 70 more than half of this additional cost could be avoided by auctioning quotas and exploiting the revenue recycling effect

alternative transportation fuel standards welfare effects and climate benefits this paper develops an integrated model of the fuel and agricultural sectors to analyze the welfare and greenhouse gas emission ghg effects of the existing renewable fuel standard rfs a low carbon fuel standard lcfs and a carbon price policy the conceptual framework shows that these policies differ in the incentives they create for the consumption and mix of different types of biofuels and in their effects on food and fuel prices and ghg emissions we also simulate the welfare and ghg effects of these three policies which are normalized to achieve the same level of us ghg emissions by promoting greater production of food crop based biofuels the rfs is found to lead to a larger reduction in fossil fuel use but also a larger increase in food prices and a smaller reduction in global ghg emissions compared to the lcfs and carbon tax all three policies increase us social welfare compared to a no biofuel baseline scenario due to improved terms of trade even when environmental benefits are excluded global social welfare increases with a carbon tax but decreases with the rfs and lcfs due to the efficiency costs imposed by these policies even after including the benefits of mitigating ghg emissions

slacks based efficiency measures for modeling environmental performance we develop two slacks based efficiency measures for modeling environmental performance on the basis of environmental dea technology of the two measures one is a composite index with a higher discriminating power for modeling economic environmental performance and the other can be used to estimate the impacts of environmental regulations we apply the proposed measures to model the co2 emissions of 30 oecd countries from 1998 to 2002 and present the results obtained

does the current account still matter do global current account imbalances still matter in a world of deep international financial markets where gross two way financial flows often dwarf the net flows measured in the current account contrary to a complete markets or consenting adults view of the world large current account imbalances while very possibly warranted by fundamentals and welcome can also signal elevated macroeconomic and financial stresses as was arguably the case in the mid 2000s furthermore the increasingly big valuation changes in countries net international investment positions while potentially important in risk allocation cannot be relied upon systematically to offset the changes in national wealth implied by the current account the same factors that dictate careful attention to global imbalances also imply however that data on gross international financial flows and positions are central to any assessment of financial stability risks the balance sheet mismatches of leveraged entities provide the most direct indicators of potential instability much more so than do global imbalances though the imbalances may well be a symptom that deeper financial threats are gathering