Prices versus Quantities in a Second-Best Setting

The choice between taxes and tradable permits has been independently analysed by two distinct research traditions. The first proceeds from Weitzman's partial equilibrium stochastic model and concludes that a tax should be preferred if the marginal abatement cost curve is steeper than the marginal environmental benefit curve. The second utilises deterministic general equilibrium models with pre-existing distortionary taxes. It concludes that non-revenue-raising instruments (e.g., grandfathered tradable permits) are costlier than revenue-raising ones (e.g., a tax on every unit of pollution or auctioned permits). To build a bridge between these two traditions, we introduce in Weitzman's model a positive cost of public funds due to pre-existing distortionary taxes. The tax admits a greater comparative advantage over the permits, as compared to Weitzman's classical result. Then, we assume that the regulated industry blocks any proposal that poses it too high an expected burden. This may require a transfer to firms, in the form of freely-allocated permits or lump-sum tax rebate. It turns out that if this acceptability constraint is binding, then the comparative advantage of taxes over permits is still reinforced. Quantitatively, even if the marginal benefit function is 50% more steeply sloped than the marginal cost function, the price instrument should be preferred. We also compare the expected net benefit of these two instruments to a contingent instrument which leads to the ex post optimum. The superiority of the contingent instrument over the quantity one is higher than in first-best.     

Taxesversus tradable discharge permits: A review in the light of the U.S. and European experience

The U.S. and West European environmental protection programs have incorporated different economic instruments for controlling pollution. The U.S. has made extensive use of tradable permits of several forms but has never used direct pollution taxes. The countries of the European Community have long used an array of pollution taxes but have never used tradable permits. A review and critique of these experiences and an analysis of the attributes of taxes and tradable permits seeks identify the strengths and weaknesses of each instrument and to provide guidelines for the successful implementation of each system.     

Allowing for Household Preferences in Emission Trading – A Contribution to the Climate Policy Debate

In the context of emission trading it seems to be taken as given that people's preferences can be ignored with respect to the whole process of fixing emission targets and allocating emission permits to polluters. With this paper we want to reopen the debate on how citizens can be involved in this process. We try to show how citizen preferences can be included in the process of pollution control through emission trading. We propose an emission trading system where all emission permits are initially allocated to households who are then allowed to sell them in the permit market or to withhold (at least some of) them in order to reduce total pollution. This proposal tries to overcome the fundamental disadvantage of traditional permit systems which neglect consumer preferences by solely distributing emission permits to producers / polluters. In our system the property right to nature is re-allocated to the households who obtain the opportunity of reducing actual emissions according to their personal preferences by withholding a part or all of the emission permits allotted to them. Such a change in environmental policy would mark a return to the traditional principles of consumer sovereignty by involving households (at least partially) in the social abatement decision process instead of excluding them. Another advantage of admitting households to the TEP market as sellers or buyers of permits is that this increases the number of agents in the permit market and thus significantly reduces the possibilities of strategic market manipulations.     

Political Measures for Strategic Environmental Policy with External Effects

This paper investigates an environmental policy designed to reduce the emission of pollutants under uncertainty, with the agent problem as an optimal stopping problem. We first analyze the two cases in which there are one agent and two competing agents by following Ohyama and Tsujimura (2005). When we consider a model of strategic agents, we need to analyze the external economic effect that is peculiar to an agent’s environmental policy implementation. Then, to improve and resolve these external effects, we examine three alternative political measures, comprising an environmental subsidy, an environmental tax and an emission trading system. The results of the analysis indicate that the environmental subsidy and environmental tax promote environmental policy. However, they do not create an incentive to be the leader. On the other hand, an emissions trading system not only promotes environmental policy but also creates an incentive for leadership.This paper was previously circulated under the title “Political Measures for Strategic Environmental Policy with Induced Effects”. The authors would like to thank Masaaki Kijima for helpful comments. The authors would also like to thank Alistair Munro and two anonymous referees providing detailed comments and suggestions. This research was partially supported by Daiwa Securities Group Inc. The second-named author was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (2), 16310118.     

Pooling of Uncertainty: Enforcing Tradable Permits Regulation when Emissions are Stochastic

An under-appreciated advantage of tradable permits regulation is its ability to create better decision-making when emissions are stochastic. In general, the distribution of stochastic actual emissions around intended emissions results in over- or under-compliance. Permit tradability reduces the extent to which actual aggregate emissions deviate from regulatory targets, by giving firms an additional mechanism for responding to uncertainty. We construct a two period model of permit regulation with ex post enforcement to demonstrate how the permit market distributes uncertainty, and to illustrate the importance of expectations toward permit market outcomes.     

Employment Services

Using published research articles as a measure of output, the author ranks graduate schools' success in preparing economists.     

On the efficiency of environmental instruments in a spatial economy

This paper develops an efficiency criterion to evaluate environmental policy instruments in a spatial economy. We call an environmental policy regime at the regional level efficient if it guarantees not only an efficient distribution of emission permits within a region, but also an efficient locational pattern of mobile firms across the regions of a federation. Using marketable pollution rights or emission taxes, efficiency in this broad sense can only be achieved if revenues of regional environmental agencies are not transferred to regional firms. Direct controls neither support an efficient allocation of emission rights within a region nor locational efficiency of firms.     

Uncertainty over future environmental taxes

Besides static efficiency properties, environmental policies should be evaluated in terms of their longer-run impacts on investment and technological change to reduce pollution and degradation of natural resources. Using a stochastic dynamic programming approach, this paper analyzes how uncertainty about a future environmental tax on a polluting input alters investment in resource conservation and how such investment affects future demand for the polluting input. The impact on investment depends crucially on price elasticities of demand and on the manner in which investment shifts and rotates the demand schedule for the polluting input in the future. The expectation of a higher tax does not necessarily create stronger incentives for investment in resource conservation. More uncertainty about future policies does encourage investment if it makes a firm more responsive to future price changes and discourages investment if it makes a firm less responsive to price changes.     

略论单一税视野中的新一轮税制改革

"单一税" 的税制设计模式,体现了拓展税基、降低税率、简化征管的中性税收思想.在我国税制改革中引入单一税的理念,符合社会分工演进中的税制调整趋势,有助于免除经济性重复征税.我国连续多年的预算超收,也具备了启动单一税改革的财力基础.在改革路径上,需要结合现实国情,逐步调整主体税种结构,实行长期性的低税政策.     

Hybrid Carbon Incentive Mechanisms and Political Acceptability

This paper analyses how hybrid systems of carbon taxes and tradeable permits optimize some conflicting dimensions of political acceptability related to the design of these instruments. Pure systems like taxes without exemptions or auctioned tradeable permits cause problems for political acceptability in open economies due to high overall costs (abatement cost plus payments on the tax or auctions) for current polluters. Unfortunately, pure systems based on grandfathering of emission rights across the board do not provide a feasible alternative because of monitoring and enforcement problems. In contrast, consciously designed hybrid systems employ grandfathering of emission rights together with either carbon taxes or auctioned carbon permits in order to overcome acceptability problems of pure systems, while leaving incentives to reduce emissions at the margin untouched. Moreover, monitoring and enforcement costs of the hybrid systems are less due to the lower number of participating agents compared with the pure systems, while opportunities for cost- or burden-sharing exist as well.     

Reported gross income and marginal tax rates: estimation of the behavioural reactions of Spanish taxpayers

This article estimates, for the Spanish personal income tax, the elasticity of reported gross income to marginal tax rates. The identification of this elasticity has been performed using the reform approved by Law 35/2006, which came into force in January 2007. The elasticities obtained suggest the existence of important efficiency costs, with significant regional differences. The average elasticity estimated for Spain as a whole is 0.676. However, this elasticity is highly dispersed throughout the Spanish administrative regions, which indicates the unequal power of distortion of the tax. Thus, households whose principal source of income is salary display an elasticity of 0.337, compared to 0.682 for households whose main income source comes from business or savings. Lastly, a positive correlation is also detected between elasticity and income level: an elasticity of 3.6 is reached for taxpayers with an annual gross income exceeding 100 000€.     

Assessing tax reforms through the elasticity of reported income: an empirical analysis for Spain

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the elasticity of reported income to assess tax reforms from the perspectives of tax revenue and well-being. Employing different identification strategies, evidence is provided of the value of the elasticity of gross reported income in Spain and, based on this elasticity, a detailed assessment is made of the impact of the increase in marginal tax rates which the Spanish government approved in 2012. We use microdata from the Taxpayers Panel of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The mean value of this elasticity for Spain is 0,363 with considerable heterogeneity depending on taxpayers’ characteristics.     

Uncertainty and the Choice of Policy Instruments: A Note On Baumol and Oates Propositions

Baumol and Oates' propositions, the irrelevancy of benefit uncertainty and the importance of cost uncertainty on the choice between a tax and a system of marketable permits, are limited to a large-number case in which the opportunities for victims of pollution to participate in a permit market are non-existent. However, with the evolution of environmental groups and coalitions of victims in neighborhoods, the large-number case can easily transform into a small-number case. This paper shows that when the pollution standard, set at what appears to be optimal ex ante, is excessively lenient, the system of marketable permits offers such groups a flexibility to buy pollution permits in a competitive market and destroy them until the optimal solution is realized. In the reverse situation, however, Baumol and Oates propositions are unambiguously valid.     

Environmental rights on the futures markets an application to the dutch manure market

A study was carried out to analyze futures markets for tradable rights after a cash market was initiated. Furthermore, some indication was given on the size of such a futures market to provide insight into its viability. Futures markets can play a role in solving environmental problems, by making the market for pollution rights (i.e. P₂O₅ rights) and agro rights (milk rights, sugar rights and P₂O₅ rights) more effective and transparent. Moreover, the market for tradable rights would be able to meet the users' need for hedging. This paper investigated the possibility of introducing a futures markets for tradable P₂O₅ rights and the commodity manure. Because there is already a cash market for manure, although not well developed yet, and there will be a cash market for P₂O₅ rights, a futures market is a logical sequel. The futures market can play a role in implementing agricultural policy efficiently and with respect to manure and P₂O₅ rights can be an economically efficient solution to environmental problems.We acknowledge the financial support of the ATA (Agricultural Futures Market Amsterdam).     

Timing and Commitment of Environmental Policy,Adoption of New Technology,and Repercussions on R&;D

We investigate the interplay between environmental policy, incentives to adoptnew technology, and repercussions on R&D. We study a model where a monopolistic upstream firm engages in R&D and sells advanced abatement technology to polluting downstream firms. We consider four different timing and commitment regimes of environmental tax and permit policies: ex post taxation (or issuing permits), interim commitment to a tax rate (a quota of permits) after observing R&D success but before adoption, and finally two types of ex antecommitment before R&D activity, one with a unique tax rate (quota of permits), the other one with a menu of tax rates (permit quotas). We study the second best tax and permit policies and rank these with respect to welfare. In particular, we find that commitment to a menu of tax rate dominates all other policy regimes.     

环境税收的国际借鉴及对中国的启示

环境税收政策在国外发达国家已付诸实施并取得了一定效果。借鉴国外在环境税收方面的成功经验,中国在研究实施环境税制中应循序渐进地推进税制改革,同时利用新增税收增加就业、提高能源消费弹性,以实现经济的可持续发展。     

妨碍我国排污权交易政策实施的制度瓶颈分析

结合污染物的总量控制和排污许可证制度,我国已经进行了十多年的各类排污权交易试点工作。但是,排污权交易却至今未能形成一个全国统一的环境政策。本文利用制度分析框架从制度结构与不完全合约的角度对此进行分析,并认为妨碍我国排污权交易政策实施的制度瓶颈主要是排污权交易制度结构的缺陷。     

Using Non Market Valuation to Inform the Choice Between Permits and Fees in Environmental Regulation

The purpose of this short note is to open an exploration regarding the use of non market valuation to help guide the selection of economically efficient pollution control instruments. As long as non market valuation techniques can correctly estimate the slope of the marginal benefit of abatement curve, this information along with engineering cost estimates of the unit costs or slope of the marginal abatement cost will provide useful information to policy makers in choosing between fees and permits. An illustrative review of the literature suggests that both stated and revealed preference methods have estimated slopes of marginal benefit functions for reducing several pollutants. To investigate the efficiency of permits versus fees, an illustrative review of corresponding marginal abatement costs is also made. For air pollutants affecting visibility, the slope of the marginal benefit curve is far greater than the slope of the marginal abatement costs, suggesting permits as the efficient instrument. For nitrates in groundwater used for drinking, the marginal benefit curve is flatter than the rather steep marginal abatement cost, suggesting fees/taxes would be a more efficient economic instrument. We hope this note stimulates more emphasis in non market valuation on estimating the slope of the marginal benefit function to enhance environmental economists ability to make policy recommendations regarding the choice of pollution instruments for specific pollutants.      

Airing Your Dirty Laundry: A Quick Marketable Pollution Permits Game for the Classroom

In this article, the authors describe a simple classroom game that demonstrates the advantage of tradable emissions permits in regulating environmental pollution. Students take on the role of polluters who must consider the costs of complying with a uniform reduction and a tradable permits program. The class is divided into high-cost polluters and low-cost polluters so students can observe the gains from trade as high-cost students purchase pollution rights from the low-cost students in the tradable permits scenario. A major advantage of the game is that it can be conducted within as little as 20 minutes and does not require that students have prior knowledge of economics or regulatory policies. This makes the game appropriate for economics and noneconomics courses alike.     

绿色建筑产品相关可交易证书机制研究

我国建筑业资源的消耗水平远高于世界平均水平,控制建筑产品资源消耗对于保护环境、促进经济的可持续发展具有重要意义。受可交易排污许可制度的启发,探讨了可交易证书机制在绿色建筑规制中的应用可行性,从绿色建筑的节水、节能、节材、节地等方面入手,设计了绿色建筑产品相关可交易证书体系;并根据建筑产品开发建设的特点,设计了绿色建筑产品相关可交易证书规制政策,讨论了影响绿色建筑产品相关可交易证书机制的四个核心环节,认为只要标准设定、审核认证、证书交易与监督惩罚四个核心环节合理而有效,即可确保可交易证书机制的顺利实施。