Environmental policy instruments and imperfectly competitive international trade

Policy makers, industrialists and environmentalists express concern that the imposition of tough environmental policies in some countries displaces production, and hence pollution, to countries which impose less tough environmental policies. Yet empirical studies of such impacts suggest they are small. However, these findings are derived from models in which international trade is modelled as being perfectly competitive. In this paper I model trade as imperfectly competitive with scope for strategic behavior by producers, in this case investment in capital. I show that the choice of environmental policy instrument can have a marked impact on the incentives for producers to act strategically, with environmental standards significantly reducing the incentives for strategic overinvestment relative to environmental taxes or no environmental policy at all. Whether welfare is higher using standards or taxes depends on whether producing countries are also significant consumers of the polluting product, and on whether all producing governments act to reduce emissions or only some subset of governments. To assess the quantitative significance of these theoretical results I conduct policy simulations on a calibrated model of the world fertilizer industry. These simulations show that the impact of environmental policy on strategic behaviour can be large.     

Global environment and dynamic games of environmental policy in an international duopoly

This paper examines a differential game model of international pollution control in which polluting oligopolists compete in a third country market. Two alternative policy instruments (emission taxes and command-and-control regulations) are considered. A tougher emission policy in the home country enhances the foreign firm’s competitiveness because of the static “rent-shifting” effect. The foreign country also enjoys a future improvement of the global environmental quality by “free riding” on the home country’s emission reduction effort. Because of these strategic effects, the levels of environmental policy determined in the noncooperative policy game are distorted away from the socially optimal level. Moreover, the emission tax game produces a more distortionary outcome than that in the command-and-control game; it generates more pollution and lower welfare.      

Environmental Taxes and First-Mover Advantages

This paper studies whether governments prefer to be leaders or followers in environmental policies. To analyze this question I assume transboundary pollution and two countries that have to decide whether to set environmental taxes sequentially or simultaneously. When taxes are set sequentially an effect, denoted as the sequential setting effect, arises that raises the equilibrium taxes. I show that whether governments prefer to be leaders or followers in taxes depends on the degree to which environmental pollution spills over to trading partners. When this overspill is low enough, taxes are strategic complements and both the leader and the follower obtain greater welfare than under a simultaneous tax setting. However, the leader country obtains greater welfare than the follower. In this case, governments set taxes sequentially. When the degree to which environmental pollution spills over to trading partners is high enough, taxes are strategic substitutes and governments set taxes simultaneously. In this case, each government wants to avoid becoming the follower in taxes.     

An open economy model of the effects of unilateral environmental policy by a large developing country

In this paper, we pose the following question. Why is it that despite the universal recognition of the need for global environmental protection, developing countries have been lax in instituting stringent environmental regulations? Addressing this question from an economic standpoint, we show that there are plausible theoretical circumstances in which a large developing country can be worse off if it chooses to implement environmental policy in an uncoordinated fashion. The empirical dimension of this question is stressed and the key parameters – such as elasticities and marginal propensities to consume – which are germane to any policy discussion regarding this issue are identified. Second, we study – once again from the perspective of a large developing country – the possibility of using the domestic tax structure optimally to attain environmental policy objectives in a second-best environment. This scenario involves taxing pollution indirectly, by using product taxes. Finally, keeping the empirical dimension of the question in mind, we show how to compute optimal externality correcting taxes. These taxes are primarily a function of different kinds of elasticities.     

Industrial Policy and Firm Heterogeneity

Our concern in this paper is with firm-specific industrial policy. When R&D subsidies or taxes are differentiated among firms, the question arises as to which firms in an industry should receive such support. We analyze a situation where firms differ in their R&D technologies in two distinct ways: in the costs of performing R&D activities and in the output obtained from such activities. We find that the optimal firm-specific industrial policy is affected differently by the two sources of firm heterogeneity. Furthermore, a change in a firm's R&D productivity has an ambiguous effect on the optimal policy towards the firm.
JEL classification: O 31; L 52; F 13     

On the Efficiency of Green Trade Policy

The paper derives conditions for second best environmental policy when there are foreign countries which fail to implement appropriate environmental regulations. It is shown that in such cases, efficiency in the global economy will not be achieved unless domestic environmental regulations are supplemented by trade provisions. The result is independent of whether environmental problems are local or international. Furthermore, when trade provisions are implemented, efficiency requires that domestic environmental taxes are fixed at the Pigouvian tax rate. The results imply that there is an economic rationale for regulating the trade between signatories and non-signatories of international environmental agreements. Efficient trade regulations will either take the form of trade restrictions or trade promotions, depending on whether the environmental problem is created by production or consumption activities, and whether the net import of the relevant commodity is positive or negative. It is argued that an efficient climate agreement, signed by a group of fuel-importing countries (e.g., the OECD countries), should include a subsidy on the import of fossil fuels.     

环境税经济效应的扩展分析及其政策启示

本文从环境税的理论基础入手,回顾了环境税经济效应分析的几个有代表性的基本观点,认真分析了环境税经济效应传统分析中存在的局限性,并在此基础上将"经济结构优化效应"和"国际贸易受益效应"引入到环境税经济效应分析当中,大大拓宽了环境税经济效应分析的研究视角,最后在环境税经济效应创新性分析的基础上提出了相应的环境税政策启示。     

Voluntary Environmental Agreements vs. Emission Taxes in Strategic Trade Models

The purpose of the paper is to narrow the gap between the widespread use of voluntary agreements and research on the rationale of such approaches. A topical example are voluntary agreements of many industries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because of global warming. If the industry anticipates that taxes and fees will be introduced in the coming years, it seems rational to act in advance in order to mitigate the tax levels.The conventional approach in strategic trade and tax models was to look at a two-stage game where governments set taxes first and then firms react. In such a policy regime the government is concerned about the international competitiveness of its firms and sets taxes below marginal damages. In this paper, we consider a policy regime with a reversed timing. Firms commit themselves in the face of emission taxes to abatement efforts and to lower levels of the environmentally intensive output. Then the government introduces the tax. Under this timing of strategies the tax is equal to marginal damage. Firms waive profit and reduce output in order to use less of the polluting input. The reward for this behavior will be a less strict use of policy instruments and hence lower abatement costs in the near future.     

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Taxation in Federal Systems

The literature on trade liberalization and environment has not yet considered federal structures. In this paper, we show how the design of environmental policy in a federal system has implications for the effects of trade reform. Trade liberalization leads to a decline in pollution taxes, regardless of whether pollution taxes are set at the federal (centralized) or local (decentralized) level, and it increases social welfare. The effect under a decentralized system is smaller than if these taxes are set by the federal government, and pollution emissions therefore decline in this case. Moreover, majority bias interacts with trade liberalization if federal taxes are used.     

Eco-labels, Trade and Protectionism

Eco-labels are suspected to serve protectionist purposes. We analyze the choice between an environmental standard and a voluntary eco-label scheme in a partial trade model with one domestic firm and one foreign firm. The environmental standard will only apply to the domestic firm, while both firms can adopt the eco-label. Pollution is production related, and domestic consumers demand products that are produced in an “environmentally friendly” way. Our results show that it may be optimal for the domestic government to introduce an eco-label and get both firms to adopt the label, instead of setting an environmental standard. However, to what extent this policy serves protectionist purposes is ambiguous. In particular, if the willingness to pay for green products is sufficient to cover the pollution abatement costs of the foreign firm, foreign firm profit will increase while domestic firm profit will decrease compared to the outcome with a domestic environmental standard. On the other hand, if the willingness to pay for green products is insufficient, the foreign firm would be better off with a domestic environmental standard.     

碳税对我国的影响及其政策响应

二氧化碳(CO2)是引起全球气候变化的最重要的温室气体(GHG)之一。温室气体的减排是当前国际社会普遍关注的热点环境问题。碳税常常被认为是成本有效的碳减排政策工具,目前已有一些国家征收碳税或能源税。文章介绍了碳税的理论基础及其在一些国家的征收实践,总结和分析了国内外一些学者关于实施碳税对温室气体减排、对经济和能源系统的影响的研究结果,并在此基础上讨论了我国对碳税制度的政策响应和对策。     

促进区域经济协调发展的税收对策

我国区域经济差距过大的税收政策存在税率相同而实际税负不一,税种设计、税收政策不合理,应利用税收政策刺激企业投资,实行差别税率,调整主要税种和完善税收优惠政策。     

Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments

This paper investigates the impact of political lobbying on the choice of environmental policy instruments. It is argued that the prevalence of pollution emission standards over more efficient policy instruments may result from rent seeking behaviour. The model further predicts that when an emission standard is used to control pollution, rival political parties have an incentive to set the same standard. There is therefore a convergence of policies. Moreover, it is shown that emission taxes are more likely to be supported and proposed by political parties which represent environmental interest groups. This feature appears to accord with the observed support for environmental taxes by Green parties in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.     

Choosing the right instrument

This paper analyses the optimal choice of second-best optimal environmental policies. Using a partial equilibrium model, the paper first reconfirms the well-known result that the existence of a double dividend (in its weak definition) favours environmental policy instruments which maximise tax revenues for a given improvement in environmental quality. Additional revenues can be used to reduce the distortion of existing taxes such as taxes on labour and capital income. Without uncertainty, environmental taxes and auctioned permits are equally appropriate. In the presence of uncertainty, however, the optimal choice of taxes or tradable permits depends on the relative magnitudes of the marginal environmental damage and the marginal benefit from consuming a polluting good. In the second part, the paper, therefore, analyses how the revenue capacity affects the optimal choice of environmental policy instruments in the presence of uncertainty. The paper shows that the first-best choice rule between price and quantity regulation (Weitzman, 1974) remains valid in a second-best world with distortionary taxation.     

Optimal taxation, global externalities and labor mobility

This paper concerns transboundary environmental problems in the context of an optimal tax model. We assume that part of the labor force is mobile across countries, and that the set of tax instruments includes a nonlinear income tax and a commodity tax on the ‘dirty’ good that is causing damage to the environment. The purpose is to compare the (globally optimal) second best policy of a cooperative equilibrium with the policy implicit in a noncooperative equilibrium. We show that the commodity taxes differ between equilibria because of: (i) transboundary externalities not internalized by national governments, (ii) interaction effects between environmental and other policies, and (iii) labor mobility.     

Environment,Directed Technical Change and Economic Policy

We study the effects of an economic policy in an endogenous growth general equilibrium framework where production of consumption goods requires two resource inputs: a polluting non-renewable resource and a non-polluting labour resource. The use of the former contributes to the accumulation of pollution in the atmosphere, which affects welfare. There is a specific research sector associated with each of those resources. We provide a full welfare analysis, and we describe the equilibrium paths in a decentralized economy. We go on to study the effects of three associated economic policy tools: a tax on the polluting resource, and two research subsidies. We show that the optimal environmental policy has two main effects; it delays the extraction of the resource and with it the level of polluting emissions and it reallocates research efforts, decreasing the amount put into “grey” research to the benefit of “green” research. We also show that the environmental policy is grey-biased in the short-term, and green-biased in the long-term. Finally, we compute the optimal values for these tools.      

Climate Policy,Learning, and Technology Adoption in Small Countries

A significant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions requires international cooperation in emission abatement as well as individual countries’ investment in the adoption of abatement technology. The existing literature on climate policy pays insufficient attention to small countries, which account for a substantial proportion of global emission. In this study, we investigate how climate policy and learning about climate damage affect investment in abatement technology in small countries. We consider three alternative climate policy instruments: emission standards, harmonized taxes and auctioned permits. We say that learning is feasible if an international environmental agreement (IEA) is formed after the resolution of uncertainty about climate damage. We find that, either with learning and quadratic abatement costs or without learning, harmonized taxes outperform emission standards and auctioned permits in terms of investment efficiency. Without learning, a large cost of nonparticipation (that a country incurs) in the IEA can be beneficial to the country. Whether learning improves investment efficiency depends on the size of this nonparticipation cost.     

Optimal income taxation with human capital accumulation and limited record keeping

This paper characterizes optimal income taxes in a dynamic economy where human capital is unobservable and the government is restricted to use taxes that depend only on current income. I show that unobservability of human capital tends to decrease the labor wedge, while the effect on the human capital wedge is uncertain. I also analyze the relationship between optimal taxes in economies with and without endogenous human capital and identify two qualitative reasons why the optimal tax codes will differ. I perform numerical simulations to calculate the quantitative relevance of endogenous human capital formation for optimal tax policy. I find that endogenous human capital lowers marginal tax rates by about 9% on average, as compared with a static model without human capital.     

Strategic Environmental Policy, Clean Technologies and the Learning Curve

In the political discussion, it is often emphasized that the environmental service industry (which produces a clean factor of production) benefits from an early and strong environmental policy. This is especially likely if the costs of production are decreasing over time due to learning curve effects. Surprisingly, the environmental service industry has not been integrated into the theory of strategic environmental policy yet. Our main question is whether a national leadership in environmental policy can pay off if profits of the environmental service industry are taken into account. We consider a two-period model with one firm in each country competing on a third market. Emissions can be substituted by the clean factor when deciding upon the production technology. The unit costs of producing the clean factor in the second period are decreasing in the quantity produced in the initial period. We derive the optimal environmental policy for both periods from a national point of view and show that the presence of the environmental service industry can indeed lead to a national leadership in pollution control.     

Reforms of Environmental Policies in the Presence of Cross‐border Pollution and Public–Private Clean‐up*

We construct a two‐country model where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Pollution abatement is undertaken by both private producers and the public sector. We characterize Nash optimal levels of the policy instruments in the two countries: emission taxes and funds allocated for public abatement activities. We examine the implications of a number of multilateral policy reforms. One of our findings is that the magnitude of the beneficial effect of a reform depends on the scope of the reform; if it is restricted to a subset of policy instruments, then the efficacy of environmental policy reform can be greatly undermined.