optimal trade taxes for a large country with non atomistic firms abstract the conventional prescription for a country possessing market power in world markets is an import tariff or export tax typically a country will have a continuum of traders differentiated both by size and behavior optimal policy then involves a structure of trade taxes rather than a uniform tax or tariff with larger firms generally taxed at lower rates than smaller ones when policy is constrained to a uniform tax optimal policy depends both on the foreign demand or supply elasticity and the size distribution of firms the principles derived here are applied numerically to indonesia s exports of nutmeg

equivalence and implementation of alternative methods for determining returns to scale in data envelopment analysis abstract this paper discusses alternative methods for determining returns to scale in dea the methods for estimating returns to scale in dea as developed by banker 1984 banker charnes and cooper 1984 and banker and thrall 1992 are proved to be conceptually equivalent to the two stage methods of fare grosskopf and lovell 1985 when their assumptions apply here the emphasis is on the ccr model of dea and very simple methods are introduced for determining returns to scale locally with this model by reference to banker s concept of most productive scale size

forecasting residential electricity consumption in greece using monthly and quarterly data abstract this paper studies electricity consumption household use only in greece we explore the dynamic relationships among several potentially relevant time series variables and develop appropriate models for forecasting it is apparent that personal disposable income temperature and the price of electricity used by the households play an important role in the demand for electricity in this study we use both monthly and quarterly data and find that the performance of quarterly models may not be as good as that of the monthly ones for transfer function model identification we use the linear transfer function ltf method which is more efficient and easier to use than the traditional cross correlation ccf method

residential energy demand in oecd countries and the role of irreversible efficiency improvements abstract after undergoing substantial changes during a period of high energy prices household energy demand did not rebound in times of declining energy prices as might have been expected hence other factors such as irreversible improvements in technical efficiency must be understood in order to describe both past and future household energy demand in this paper we consider irreversible efficiency improvements as a major reason for the moderate growth in energy demand after the plummeting of the oil price in 1985 we test different econometric models to take into account efficiency indicators the major conclusions of our investigation are i price elasticities are different for rising and falling prices for the latter they are close to zero implying a low rebound effect in the residential sector ii technical efficiency is an important parameter for describing and forecasting energy demand and iii income elasticities turn out to be higher once we incorporate indicators of technological efficiency in the process of estimating energy demand

estimation of returns to scale using data envelopment analysis a comment banker 1984 introduced the idea that the sum of the intensity variables in the dea activity analysis model can be used to identify returns to scale a counterexample in chang and guh 1991 shows that banker s method may fail this prompted banker and thrall 1992 to develop an alternative approach to estimate scale efficiency using dea seemingly unaware of the work by byrnes fare and grosskopf 1984 fare grosskopf and lovell 1985 1994 and fare and grosskopf 1985 etc on the same topic their new approach is very similar to the methodology originated in these references the purpose of this comment is to make our method known and to contrast it to the banker and thrall 1992 approach

one sided elasticities and technical efficiency in multi output production a theoretical framework one of the concepts that have sparked considerable interest in the theory of production and efficiency is that of returns to scale rts economics researchers typically define rts using the notion of elasticity considerable research activity on rts has also been observed by management science researchers who utilize the methodology of data envelopment analysis dea to gain insights on rts in this paper we present a theoretical framework that integrates existing economics and management science literature on rts and provides a solid foundation for research work in this area our framework defines discusses and proposes an approach to measure input and output oriented elasticities and one sided rts we demonstrate how the work done in dea is a special case of our framework and discuss the conditions under which the resulting two left hand and the two right hand elasticities can be equal future research directions are also discussed

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

global warming and energy demand list of tables list of figures list of contributors preface 1 global warming and energy elasticities terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstonepart 1 estimating long term energy elasticities 2 alternative approaches to estimating long run energy demand elasticities an application to asian developing countries ron smith and m hashem pesaran 3 a survey of international energy elasticities neil manning and jago atkinson 4 long run demand elasticities for gasoline thomas sterner and mikael franzen 5 responses of energy demand in uk manufacturing to the energy price increases of 1973 and 1979 80 alan ingham 6 elasticities for oecd aggregate final energy demand lakis vouyoukas 7 modelling uk energy demand derek hodgson and keith millerpart ii energy the economy and greenhouse gas abatement 8 endogenous technological progress in fossil fuel demand laurence boone stephen hall david kemball cook and clare smith 9 uk energy price elasticities and their implications for long term co2 abatement terry barker 10 price elasticity and market structure overcoming obstacles to ensure energy efficiency tim jackson 11 rethinking the use of energy elasticities stefan p schleicher 12 revisiting the costs of co2 abatement paul ekins 13 asymmetrical price elasticities of energy demand michael grubb14 conclusions terry barker paul ekins and nick johnstone bibliography index

the terms of trade between oil importers abstract an intertemporal model of opec and two large country oil importers is used to show that asymmetries between importers cause oil price changes to alter the terms of trade between them in systematic ways for example differences in oil dependence marginal propensities to save international debt positions factor substitutability trade in capital goods and wage setting behavior can all influence the final goods terms of trade between oil importers in predictable ways when oil prices change

differential export taxes along the oilseeds value chain a partial equilibrium analysis this paper studies the implementation of differential export tax det rates along value chains in particular in the oilseeds chain seeds vegetable oils biodiesel this trade policy consists in relatively high export taxes on raw commodities and relatively low taxes on processed goods this policy may generate public revenues and benefit final consumption by lowering domestic prices of vegetable oils and biodiesel and also promotes production at more processed stages of transformation particularly in response to tariff escalation by importing partners we first study the theoretical justification of this trade policy with a simple international trade model it shows how implementing a tax on exports of raw agricultural commodity in a country exporting seeds and vegetable oils augments the sum of profits and final consumers surplus in the processing sector of farmers surplus and of public revenues then we develop a world partial equilibrium model of the oilseed value chain that illustrates these theoretical conclusions we simulate i the elimination of dets in argentina indonesia and ukraine ii the elimination of import tariffs applied by the eu and the us on the same goods iii the elimination of dets in argentina indonesia and ukraine and of import tariffs applied by the eu and the us according to our estimates both consumers and producers throughout the world benefit from the removal of export taxes in these value chains respectively 931 million usd and 2 2 billion usd the third scenario leads to a significant expansion of world production of all activities along the value chain including the production of biodiesel for which world output would expand by one percent

further discussion on linear production functions and dea abstract the purpose of the current paper is to clarify the misunderstanding in using the constant returns to scale crs model in data envelopment analysis dea to estimate returns to scale rts classification by illustrating the following two different assumptions a all decision making units dmus are assumed to be compared to a crs frontier in the ccr model i e all dmus are assumed to be capable of operating under crs and b all dmus exhibit crs several incorrect points about rts estimation raised by chang k p and guh y y 1991 european journal of operational research 52 215 223 and chang k p 1997 european journal of operational research 97 597 599 are examined it is shown that the assumption a does not mean that the rts classification cannot be estimated the crs frontier assumption cannot change the rts nature of each dmu since the ccr model mixes a technical efficiency and a scale efficiency it is possible and meaningful to use the ccr results to determine the rts classification finally the infeasibility of chang and guh s 1991 treatment of non archimedean infinitesimal is discussed

short and long run elasticities in energy demand a cointegration approach abstract short and long run energy demand elasticities are estimated on danish annual data for 1948 1990 energy consumption the real price of energy and real gdp appear to be non stationary variables cointegration and error correction methods are therefore applied all estimated parameters have the expected signs and magnitudes and no evidence is found of a structural break in energy demand caused by the increases in real energy prices since 1973 74

carbon tax scenarios and their effects on the irish energy sector abstract in this paper we use annual time series data from 1960 to 2008 to estimate the long run price and income elasticities underlying energy demand in ireland the irish economy is divided into five sectors residential industrial commercial agricultural and transport and separate energy demand equations are estimated for all sectors energy demand is broken down by fuel type and price and income elasticities are estimated for the primary fuels in the irish fuel mix using the estimated price and income elasticities we forecast irish sectoral energy demand out to 2025 the share of electricity in the irish fuel mix is predicted to grow over time as the share of carbon intensive fuels such as coal oil and peat falls the share of electricity in total energy demand grows most in the industrial and commercial sectors while oil remains an important fuel in the residential and transport sectors having estimated the baseline forecasts two different carbon tax scenarios are imposed and the impact of these scenarios on energy demand carbon dioxide emissions and government revenue is assessed if it is assumed that the level of the carbon tax will track the futures price of carbon under the eu ets the carbon tax will rise from 21 50 per tonne co2 in 2012 the first year forecasted to 41 in 2025 results show that under this scenario total emissions would be reduced by approximately 861 000 tonnes of co2 in 2025 relative to a zero carbon tax scenario and that such a tax would generate 1 1 billion in revenue in the same year we also examine a high tax scenario under which emissions reductions and revenue generated will be greater finally in order to assess the macroeconomic effects of a carbon tax the carbon tax scenarios were run in hermes the esri s medium term macroeconomic model the results from hermes show that a carbon tax of 41 per tonne co2 would lead to a 0 21 contraction in gdp and a 0 08 reduction in employment a higher carbon tax would lead to greater contractions in output

some economics of global warming the greenhouse effect itself is simple enough to understand and is not in any real dispute what is in dispute is its magnitude over the coming century its translation into changes in climates around the globe and the impacts of those climate changes on human welfare and the natural environment these are beyond the professional understanding of any single person the sciences involved are too numerous and diverse demography economics biology and the technology sciences are needed to project emissions atmospheric chemistry oceanography biology and meteorology are needed to translate emissions into climates biology agronomy health sciences economics sociology and glaciology are needed to identify and assess impacts on human societies and natural ecosystems and those are not all there are expert judgments on large pieces of the subject but no single person clothed in this panoply of disciplines has shown up or is likely to this article makes an attempt to forecast the economic and social consequences of global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases and attempting to prevent it

the dual political economy of taxes and tradable permits abstract the widely accepted difference in the political economy of taxes and tradable permits results from overly simple models a more general model shows that the distributional impacts driving the political economy of grandfathered permits can be similar for both policies

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

effects of carbon taxes in an economy with prior tax distortions an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis abstract this paper analyzes the costs of carbon taxes in a model that recognizes interactions between this tax and pre existing taxes first we examine the extent to which costs of a u s carbon tax are reduced when its revenues finance cuts in income taxes such use of revenues significantly reduces but does not eliminate the overall policy costs the positive overall costs reflect the carbon tax s focus on intermediate inputs and its relatively narrow base in comparison with income taxes we also examine the sensitivity of the carbon tax s costs to the level of pre existing taxes for any given use of revenues welfare costs rise significantly with pre existing tax rates indicating that models disregarding pre existing taxes may substantially understate the costs of new environmental tax initiatives

modeling industrial energy demand in greece using cointegration techniques abstract this paper attempts to shed light on the determinants of industrial energy demand in greece for this purpose we used cointegration analysis in order to capture short run and long run elasticities for oil and electricity industrial demand respectively the sample spans the period 1970 2004 from the empirical analysis and the johansen s maximum likelihood procedure we found cointegration for oil and electricity demand the results suggest that industrial energy demand is inelastic both in the short and the long run while electricity and oil are substitutes also oil and electricity prices are weakly exogenous both in the short and the long run

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

carbon leakage from unilateral environmental tax reforms in europe 1995 2005 abstract studies of the effects of the kyoto protocol have shown carbon leakage typically from tax and permit schemes with lump sum revenues recycling to be in the range of 5 20 using static computable general equilibrium models however in practice researchers have found that carbon leakage from the implementation of the eu ets is unlikely to be substantial because transport costs local market conditions product variety and incomplete information all tend to favour local production this study investigates potential carbon leakage from six eu member states mss that implemented environmental tax reform etrs unilaterally over the period 1995 2005 the study uses the large scale multisectoral integrated energy environment economy e3 model of 27 european countries energy environment economy model of europe e3me to undertake a dynamic comparative analysis to assess any carbon leakage effects over the longer term 1995 2012 a counterfactual reference case is constructed assuming that the six countries did not introduce etrs then alternative scenarios are developed to assess the effects of the etrs including effects on co2 emissions for the eu25 economies most mss recorded a reduction in co2 emissions when comparing the baseline case to the reference case the results show that carbon leakage is very small and in some cases negative due to technological spillover effects

a carbon tax to reduce co2 emissions in europe abstract this paper examines the effects of introducing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions produced by combustion processes in oecd european countries a sectoral model of energy consumption is constructed to examine energy saving and inter fuel substitution effects induced by the introduction of various carbon taxes the simulation period is 1989 1994 our results provide a mild support to the environmental role of a carbon tax energy saving or inter fuel substitution processes that result from the introduction of environmental taxation stabilize emissions at the 1988 level only in the electricity generation sector and only if high tax rates are assumed 100 ton c by contrast total emissions all sectors and all fuels keep growing and the implementation of a tax of 100 ton c can only reduce the emission growth rate these results would recommend the introduction of several coordinated environmental instruments the last part of the paper compares results concerning oecd europe with those obtained when examining a single country italy the comparison does not seem to be in favour of a uniform carbon tax it rather indicates that environmental policy should be designed taking into account the specific economic situation and technological choices of each single country country specific coordinated environmental policies are to be recommended where international coordination ought to concern environmental targets rather than instruments

the effect of the german and british environmental taxation reforms a simple assessment abstract this article implements a simple econometric approach to assess the effect of the environmental tax reforms introduced in germany and the uk despite the very simple econometric approach adopted in this paper in the case of the energy demand our results do not differ markedly from those obtained from complicated multi sectoral econometric models in the case of the labour demand our results differ from the estimates obtained from econometric models where the employment level is not directly influenced by the energy price on the other hand our results are more similar to those obtained from models where the level of employment is directly influenced by the energy price confirming the findings of bosquet 2000 environmental tax reform does it work a survey of the empirical evidence ecological economics 34 19 32 and oecd 2004 environment and employment an assessment working party on national environmental policy oecd paris we conclude that environmental tax reforms can deliver substantial reductions in energy consumption while having small effects on the level of employment effect which can be positive depending on the size of the reduction in the labour costs and the value of cross price elasticities

competitiveness and exemptions from environmental taxes in europe a number of european countries have introduced a variety of environmental taxes a common characteristic of their implementation is the inclusion of exemptions and tax relief in particular for some sectors of manufacturing industry this paper analyses the pattern and motivation of exemptions as they have developed in western european countries making clear the difference between the nominal and effective tax rates once the exemptions have been taken into account the principal motivation for exemptions relates to concern about competitiveness while particular environmentally intensive sectors may have some grounds for concern even these might be able to achieve cost effective environmental improvements such that their competitive position is not over disadvantaged while for an economy structured like the uk s an environmental tax plus rebate scheme sometimes called an ecological tax reform would be likely to yield benefits in terms of competitiveness the exemptions usually run counter to the environmental economic logic of using environmental taxes to internalise social costs and give economic signals that are based on the full costs of production and they are likely to increase the costs of achieving a given level of emission reduction with little justification for them also on the grounds of competitiveness it would therefore be undesirable on both economic and environmental grounds for them to remain a feature of the implementation of environmental taxes in the future

a global assessment of the economic effects of export taxes trade negotiations have been largely driven by mercantilist interests seeing imports as a threat and exports as opportunities therefore policy makers and negotiators have focused in making concessions aimed to trade market access i e reductions in import duties and in ensuring fair competitions i e putting disciplines in production and export subsidies therefore even if export taxes and export restrictions are used by many countries in 2004 piermartini noted that approximately one third of world trade organization wto members impose export duties they have been a much lower source of concerns for policy makers trade negotiators and economists however the effects of export taxes are various the terms of trade effect market power of key suppliers consumer price e g food security or intermediate input price industrial policy in favor of processed goods reduction and or stabilization government revenue and income redistribution and this versatility has made them popular in many countries even if they create serious negative externalities for their trade partners the recent years have been marked by a renewal of interests from the trade community on this issue the 2007 2008 food price crisis bouet and laborde 2010 anderson and martin 2011 has shed light on their dangerous consequences on food security in period of price hikes and export restrictions on key inputs such as rare earths has led to trade dispute between the european union and china this paper using a new detailed dataset aims to address the impact of export restrictions on global welfare the mirage computable general equilibrium cge model which is multisectoral multiregion and dynamic is used to investigate how global removal of export taxes affects global trade and real income of major trading blocks the limited analysis of export taxation under a global and multisectoral framework is largely due to the lack of data in recent years the macmaphs6 and g

energy taxes as a signaling device an empirical analysis of consumer preferences this paper presents an econometric study dealing with household demand in sweden the main objective is to empirically examine the differences in consumer reaction to the introduction of or the change in environmental taxes main focus is on environmental taxes as a signaling device the hypothesis is that the introduction of an environmental tax provides new information about the properties of the directly taxed goods this in turn may affect consumer preferences for these goods hence altering the consumption choice the result from the econometric analysis shows that all goods have negative own price elasticities and positive income elasticities concerning the signalling effect of environmental taxes the results are somewhat ambiguous the tax elasticity for energy goods used for heating seems to be significantly higher than the traditional price elasticity whereas the opposite seems to be the case for energy goods used for transportation

age analysis of the impact of a carbon energy tax on the irish economy a computable general equilibrium model with specific detail in taxation and energy use is developed in this paper to quantify the impact of the implementation of energy taxation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in ireland benchmark data combining physical energy and emissions data and economic data in the form of a social accounting matrix sam had to be compiled from various data sources because energy and pollution accounts from the seea are not available for ireland we find that the reduction target for energy related co2 emissions in ireland of 25 8 compared to 1998 levels can be achieved with a carbon energy tax of 10 15 euros per tonne of co2 though fuel switching is important in meeting the target this result is more sensitive to the possibilities for producers to substitute away from energy use welfare would fall but only by small percentages production and consumption patterns would change more significantly with a shift in demand from fuels with a high emission factor to energy sources with a lower carbon intensity and from energy to other commodities this paper confirms that a carbon energy tax leads to greater emission reductions than an equivalent uniform energy tax the latter has a stronger negative impact on the less polluting energy sectors whereas the carbon tax greatly stimulates the use of renewable energy and reduces the use of peat and coal the new sam the model and the application to energy taxes contribute to a better informed debate on environmental policy in ireland

inducing truthful revelation of generator reliability abstract liberalised electricity markets often include a capacity remuneration mechanism to allow generation firms recover their fixed costs various de rating factors and or penalties have been incorporated into such mechanisms in order to reward the unit based on the contribution they make to system security which in turn depends on the unit s reliability however this reliability is known to the firm but not to the regulator we adopt a mechanism design approach for capacity payments based on a declaration by the firm of their reliability the mechanism scales payments and penalties according to this declared reliability such that the firm s profit maximising strategy is to truthfully reveal its reliability a stochastic mixed complementarity problem mcp is used to model the interactions between the firms and we apply this methodology to a test system using irish electricity market data truth telling is induced increasing the efficiency of capacity payments while eliminating the requirement for the regulator to allocate resources to discovering reliability

estimating most productive scale size using data envelopment analysis abstract the relation between the most productive scale size mpss for paparticular input and output mixes and returns to scale for multiple inputs multiple outputs situations is explicitly developed this relation is then employed to extend the applications of data envelopment analysis dea introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes ccr to the estimation of most productive scale sizes for convex production possibility sets it is then shown that in addition to productive inefficiencies at the actual scale size the ccr efficiency measure also reflects any inefficiencies due to divergence from the most productive scale size two illustrations of the practical applications of these results to the estimation of most productive scale sizes and returns to scale for hospitals and stem electric generation plants are also provided emphasize the advantage of this method in examining specific segments of the efficient production surface

short and long run elasticities in us residential electricity demand a co integration approach abstract co integration techniques show promise in the analysis of short and long run effects of economic variables on energy use we use these techniques to develop an error correction model of annual us residential electricity demand we construct equipment stock indices and estimate the model for 1949 1993 our analysis suggests a structural shift in consumption during the 1960s we discuss reasons for this shift report the short and long run elasticities provide forecasts for 1994 1995 and compare the model s forecasts with other published forecasts

energy consumption and economic growth a causality analysis for greece abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between aggregated and disaggregated levels of energy consumption and economic growth for greece for the period 1960 2006 through the application of a later development in the methodology of time series proposed by toda and yamamoto 1995 at aggregated levels of energy consumption empirical findings suggest the presence of a uni directional causal relationship running from total energy consumption to real gdp at disaggregated levels empirical evidence suggests that there is a bi directional causal relationship between industrial and residential energy consumption to real gdp but this is not the case for the transport energy consumption with causal relationship being identified in neither direction the importance of these findings lies on their policy implications and their adoption on structural policies affecting energy consumption in greece suggesting that in order to address energy import dependence and environmental concerns without hindering economic growth emphasis should be put on the demand side and energy efficiency improvements

norwegian emissions of co 2 1987 1994 several countries have introduced taxes on fossil fuels with the aim of reducing atmospheric emissions partly because of local environmental goals so2 nox and partly to participate in a global effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases many macroeconomic studies based on both global and national models have been made of how emissions can be reduced with the help of taxes and the consequent reduction in gdp following the introduction of such taxes norway has had a co2 tax for five years thereby providing a unique opportunity to evaluate the effects of this tax on emissions the paper provides a counterfactual analysis of energy consumption and emissions if no co2 taxes had been introduced compared with the actual situation in which such taxes exist the effect of a co2 tax on oil consumption and thus co2 emissions is studied on the basis of partial economic models for various sectors of the norwegian economy the study indicates that the co2 tax has had an impact on co2 emissions in norway

a note on a discussion of testing dmus returns to scale by zhu and shen european journal of operational research 81 1995 590 596

empirical assessment of the determinants of road energy demand in greece this paper attempts to cast light on the determinants of road energy demand in greece for this purpose we used cointegration techniques and vector autoregression var analysis in order to capture short run and long run dynamics for gasoline and diesel demand respectively from the empirical analysis that covers the period 1978 2003 we find that in the long run gasoline energy demand appears to be price and income inelastic while diesel demand appears to be price inelastic and income elastic we also found that the absence of close substitutes in the road sector denotes the low level of energy switching in greece

the effects on competitiveness of coordinated versus unilateral fiscal policies reducing ghg emissions in the eu an assessment of a 10 reduction by 2010 using the e3me model abstract international competitiveness effects from coordinated and uncoordinated multilateral policies to reduce co 2 emissions from 11 member states of the eu by 2010 are compared with those from unilateral policies to achieve a 10 cut in each member state alone the paper presents the results from four projections using a large scale integrated regionalised e3 model of the eu estimated on time series cross section data 1968 93 with international trade treated as between each member state and a european transport and distribution network the 10 reduction is achieved by additional excise duties incremented every year 1999 to 2010 according to the carbon contents of fuels with special with special treatment of electricity taxed on outputs not inputs with revenues recycled via reductions in employers social security contributions multilateral coordinated policies require a common tax rate of 156 ecu per tonne carbon 1999 prices which rises to an average of 165 ecu per tonne with a wide range between regions when policies are uncoordinated all the tax shift projections show double dividends for emission reduction and employment gain for all member states unilateral policies do not show much carbon leakage but they show smaller gains for output and employment effects for price competitiveness appear to be small and mixed with serious losses appearing only for the netherlands and for metals and chemicals especially for unilateral action

pollution taxes and revenue recycling abstract discussions of environmental policy and the tax system have emphasized the value of pollution tax revenues which can be used to reduce other tax distortions in the economy however by raising private marginal production costs environmental taxes also tend to reduce gdp and exacerbate the welfare costs of conventional taxes for environmental taxes in consumption goods industries the net welfare change from these two effects is negative unless this good is a relatively weak substitute for leisure an estimate for the optimal pollution tax with full revenue recycling is 63 to 78 of marginal environmental damages

investment in electricity infrastructure in a small isolated market the case of ireland climate policy is driving an extensive deployment of wind generation in the irish electricity market this study evaluates the cost of increasing wind generation both to the system as a whole and to consumers for 2020 we consider different scenarios on fuel and carbon dioxide permit prices and the extent of electricity interconnection with great britain for a small and isolated electricity system such as ireland a high penetration of wind is economically sound only with increased interconnection to great britain since wind generation would otherwise be curtailed not surprisingly for low fuel prices the least cost scenario contains low levels of wind generation whereas the opposite is true for high fuel prices the findings highlight the importance of interconnection and its operation and governance copyright 2009 oxford university press

on alternative optimal solutions in the estimation of returns to scale in dea zhu and shen european journal of operational research 81 1995 590 show that alternative optimal solutions in the estimation of returns to scale rts are caused by a particular linear dependency among a set of extreme efficient dmus when one employs the concept of most productive scale size european journal of operational research 17 1984 35 in data envelopment analysis dea this paper demonstrates that the presence of weakly efficient dmus may also lead to alternative optima and extends the results of zhu and shen to the entire frontier necessary and sufficient conditions for the presence of multiple optimal solutions for constant returns to scale crs dmus are established

the impact of vat introduction on uk residential energy demand an investigation using the cointegration approach abstract over a two year period which started in april 1994 the real price of energy to uk households was expected to rise by 17 5 as a result of value added tax vat introduction the regressive nature of the tax forced the government to limit vat on residential fuel to 8 using a cointegration approach to take account of the non stationarity fuel consumption time series this paper estimates real energy and fuel specific price and income elasticities for the period 1974 1 1994 1 they suggest that natural gas has a positive real energy price elasticity indicating that as real price of energy rises households scrap inefficient heaters and invest in more efficient ones principally natural gas these estimates enable projections to be made of the impact of the introduction of vat and imply a rise in natural gas consumption as a result of the additional vat although at the expense of other less efficient fuels overall residential energy consumption however is unlikely to fall significantly from the tax suggesting that it is an inappropriate way of achieving environmental objectives

carbon taxes and carbon emissions trading this paper surveys the literature on and examples of current implementation of carbon taxes and carbon emission permits it sets out the theoretical basis for these instruments with special reference to the revenue recycling and tax interaction effects this theoretical work concludes that instruments which raise revenue which can be recycled so as to reduce pre existing distortionary taxes are significantly less costly than those which do not the paper then reviews the sizable literature on the distributional effects of these instruments especially with regard to industrial competitiveness and regressive effects on low income groups evaluating attempts to mitigate these where they are perceived as unacceptable the paper concludes that such efforts at mitigation while possible can substantially reduce the efficiency benefits of the instruments the projected costs of carbon taxes depend on a wide range of assumptions this is still a contested area but the paper concludes that on a range of plausible assumptions these costs need not be high finally the paper notes that early evaluations of the environmental effectiveness of carbon taxes have been generally positive this suggests that if concern about anthropogenic climate change continues to increase more countries will introduce carbon taxes and emission permits with the latter increasingly auctioned

energy demand and environmental taxes the case of greece the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects that energy taxes may have on reducing environmental pollution in greece we study the demand for residential energy for the period 1965 1998 and on the basis of these estimates we make forecasts for co2 emissions in the coming years furthermore we develop alternative scenarios for tax changes and study their effects on co2 emissions according to our findings the harmonization of the greek energy taxes to the average european union levels implies an increase of total co2 emissions by 6 annually if taxes are raised however to the highest european union levels the co2 emissions are restricted significantly these empirical findings may indicate that environmental taxation cannot be the unique instrument for combating pollution

a note on returns to scale in dea abstract this brief note adds computational convenience and efficiency to the article by banker and thrall on returns to scale in dea by modifying one of their suggestions to avoid the need for examining all alternate optima in order to reach a decision

the economics of changing course implications of adaptability and inertia for optimal climate policy this paper reviews evidence that energy technologies and systems adapt over time to accommodate external pressures that technical innovation and systemic change in the energy sector is largely induced by need and restrained by potentially large transitional costs a simple integrated model of optimal greenhouse gas abatement over time is presented in which the abatement cost depends on both fixed and transitional elements it is shown that the optimal current response and long run prospects differ radically between the classical economic case in which the cost of a given cutback in emissions is fixed exogenously and the adaptive case in which the response is ultimately adaptive but heavily constrained by inertia ie low fixed but high transitional cost if energy systems are indeed to a large degree adaptive the results demonstrate that as compared with the classical non adaptive case long run stabilization of atmospheric co2 may be optimal even with moderate damages from climate change greater near term abatement efforts are justified and the cost of a given delay in response may be several times higher neglect of the issue of induced technical change and other adaptive responses may invalidate the policy implications drawn from most integrated assessment models developed to date

efficiency effectiveness and productivity of marketing in services abstract how can a service firm right size marketing expenses and yet strive to maximize revenue this paper represents the first attempt to model these efficiency and effectiveness issues using a 49 unit asia pacific hotel chain as illustration we employ a triangular dea model with total expenses controlling for number of rooms as the raw input marketing expenses as intermediate output input and revenues from room rentals and f b as final outputs we infer that efficiency tails off when more than 12 of the budget is expended on marketing activities in terms of effectiveness we find that all the units rated as relatively inefficient can accrue increasing returns to scale in revenues from marketing activities by contrast in the productivity stage linking the raw inputs to the revenues we observe mostly decreasing returns to scale our results highlight the crucial role of marketing in service organizations

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

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

sensitivity of price elasticity of demand to aggregation unobserved heterogeneity price trends and price endogeneity evidence from u s data abstract price elasticity estimates of residential electricity demand vary widely across the energy economics and policy literature in this paper we seek to explain these findings using three nationwide datasets from the u s the american housing survey forms eia 861 and the residential energy consumption survey we examine the role of the sample period level of aggregation use of panel data use of instrumental variables and inclusion of housing characteristics and capital stock our findings suggest that price elasticities have remained relatively constant over time upon splitting our panel datasets into annual cross sections we do observe a negative relationship between price elasticities and the average price whether prices are rising or falling appears to have little effect on our estimates we also find that aggregating our data can result in both higher and lower price elasticity estimates depending on the dataset used and that controlling for unit level fixed effects with panel data generally results in more inelastic demand functions addressing the endogeneity of price and or measurement error in price with instrumental variables has a small but noticeable effect on the price elasticities finally controlling for housing characteristics and capital stock produces a lower price elasticity

residential demand for electricity the case of greece this paper examines the determinants of residential electricity consumption in greece over the period 1961 86 the paper presents first a brief description of the evolution of residential electricity consumption then it proceeds in the estimation of elasticities of residential demand for electricity using a single equation model with the ridge regression method the paper concludes that i the residential demand for electricity is price inelastic and income elastic ii there is high substitutability between electricity and lpg iii during the examined period the number of consumers played a very important role in the expansion of electricity consumption in greece and iv there is no regional variation in residential electricity demand

rules versus discretion in food storage policies this article compares various policies in a rational expectations food storage model with risk averse consumers and missing insurance markets calibrated to represent a developing country i consider an optimal storage policy under discretion and two optimal simple rules a constant private storage subsidy and a price band the storage subsidy achieves welfare gains similar to the discretionary policy the price band maximizing social welfare is a price peg scheme the floor and ceiling prices are the same and the capacity constraint represents 11 of the steady state production level this price band achieves three quarters of the gains from the optimal policy under discretion

energy demand in greece abstract this paper examines the impact of the two energy crises 1973 74 and 1978 79 on energy demand in greece initially some specific characteristics of energy consumption patterns before and after 1973 are presented and compared then demand parameters for hydroelectric energy liquid fuels and solid fuels were estimated using data for the period 1963 1984 and alternative econometric methods ols 2sls fiml to ensure that estimates do not vary across different estimation methods appropriate tests were used to examine whether a structural change in energy demand has occured following either of the two crises the results indicate that while consumption patterns may be different due to price and income changes after the crises the parameters of energy demand in greece have remained unchanged

the impacts of carbon tax and complementary policies on chinese economy under the pressure of global warming it is imperative for chinese government to impose effective policy instruments to promote domestic energy saving and carbon emissions reduction as one of the most important incentive based policy instruments carbon tax has sparked a lively controversy in china this paper explores the impact of carbon tax on chinese economy as well as the cushion effects of the complementary policies by constructing a dynamic recursive general equilibrium model the model can describe the new equilibrium for each sequential independent period e g one year after carbon tax and the complementary policies are imposed and thus describe the long term impacts of the policies the simulation results show that carbon tax is an effective policy tool because it can reduce carbon emissions with a little negative impact on economic growth reducing indirect tax in the meantime of imposing carbon tax will help to reduce the negative impact of the tax on production and competitiveness in addition giving households subsidy in the meantime will help to stimulate household consumptions therefore complementary policies used together with carbon tax will help to cushion the negative impacts of carbon tax on the economy the dynamic cge analysis shows the impact of carbon tax policy on the gdp is relatively small but the reduction of carbon emission is relatively large

forecasting energy consumption and energy related co2 emissions in greece an evaluation of the consequences of the community support framework ii and natural gas penetration abstract this study seeks to assess the future demand for energy and the trajectory of co2 emissions level in greece taking into account the impact of the community support framework csf ii on the development process and the penetration of natural gas which is one of the major csf ii interventions in the energy system demand equations for each sector of economic activity traded non traded public and agricultural sector and for each type of energy oil electricity and solid fuels are derived the energy system is integrated into a fully developed macroeconometric model so that all interactions between energy prices and production factors are properly taken into account energy co2 forecasts are then derived based on alternative scenarios for the prospects of the greek economy according to the main findings of the paper the growth pattern of forecast total energy consumption closely follows that of forecast output showing no signs of decoupling as regards co2 emissions they are expected to increase with an annual average rate which is higher than world forecasts

estimation and allocation of cost savings from collaborative co2 abatement in china abstract as an increasingly accepted way of relieving global warming collaborative carbon dioxide co2 abatement could improve not only emission performance but also cost effectiveness of abatement in this study we analyze the cost savings and benefits of collaborative abatement in the context of china by using data envelopment analysis dea approach specifically we establish 63 collaborative abatement scenarios by dividing the mainland china into six main regions and then estimate the costs savings in each collaboration abatement scenario through investigating the gains for each region in various scenarios the best collaborative partners for each region are suggested from perspectives of benefit maximization furthermore the contribution of each region to collaborative abatement cost saving is also differentiated with the shapley value approach

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

dosis facit effectum why the size of the carbon tax matters evidence from the swedish residential sector abstract after 25 years of gradually increasing its carbon tax sweden now imposes the world s highest tax on carbon dioxide emissions this paper examines the effect of the swedish carbon tax on residential carbon emissions by using european panel data we employ synthetic control methods scms and perform difference in difference did regressions to evaluate the causal impact of carbon taxation on carbon emissions in the residential sector we provide evidence that early 2000s carbon tax augmentation had a causal effect on residential carbon emissions we find that the reduction of residential carbon emissions stemming from the carbon tax augmentation ranges from 200 kg when compared with other countries with a carbon tax of more than 20 euro to 800 kg when compared with countries without a carbon tax of co2 per capita per year hence the evidence suggests that carbon taxation is an effective tool for reducing residential co2 emissions and in turn mitigating climate change

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

review of policies and measures for energy efficiency in industry sector abstract energy efficiency in industry plays key roles in improving energy security environmental sustainability and economic performance it is particularly important in strategies to mitigate climate change the evidence of great potential for cost effective efficiency derived reductions in industrial energy use and greenhouse gas ghg emissions have prompted governments to implement numerous policies and measures aimed at improving their manufacturing industries energy efficiency what can be learned from these many and varied initiatives this paper provides foundation for policy analysis for enhancing energy efficiency and conservation in industry by surveying more than 300 policies encompassing about 570 measures implemented by governments in iea countries brazil china india mexico russia and south africa it outlines the measures main features their incidence of use and their connections with specific technical actions and key stakeholders i e how and where measures affect the energy efficiency of industry it also examines the key features underlying the measures success 1 potential to reduce energy use and co2 emissions cost efficiently 2 ease of policy development execution and assessment and 3 ancillary societal effects