环境保护税对经济和碳排放影响研究——以江苏省为例

环境保护税的征收,有效减少了污染物排放,同时也会对经济和碳排放产生一定影响。通过构建包含环境保护税模块的CGE模型和江苏省2018年环境社会核算矩阵,模拟分析不同环境保护税税率对江苏省经济发展和碳排放的影响。研究发现:(1)征收环境保护税会给江苏省经济带来负面影响,但影响程度较小,当征收税率上升时,江苏省GDP、出口、省际调出等会下降,而居民和地方政府收入几乎没有变化。(2)环境保护税税率上升时,不仅会增加环境保护税收入,还会减少江苏省碳排放水平。(3)对于大多数行业,环境保护税税率上升会造成行业产出下降,但是对于污染物排放强度较低的行业,行业产出会上升,碳排放会增加。(4)为了更好地完成碳减排目标,建议江苏省可以适度增加环境保护税税率或加征碳税,对于污染物排放浓度较低的行业,可以采取补贴措施鼓励发展;对于污染物排放强度较高的行业,要推动转型升级,降低排放强度。     

Managing the quality of a resource with stock and flow controls

We consider a class of problems, which we call “SFQ” problems, in which both stocks and flows can be controlled to promote the quality of a valued resource, such as environmental quality or public infrastructure. Under the optimal policy, periodic restoration of the stock of quality complements positive but variable abatement of the flow of damages. When deterioration is more rapid or highly variable, or when abatement is more expensive relative to restoration, the optimal policy relies relatively more on restoration.When deterioration is due to private firms or individuals, a flow tax equal to the present value of marginal damages provides efficient incentives for abatement. This tax rises at first as quality worsens, but eventually falls as restoration nears. The revenues raised by such a tax approximates the cost of restoration, with the two quantities converging as the variance of flows goes to zero.We discuss the implications of the SFQ model for a range of real-world problems in the environmental arena, and for the management of public infrastructure. But the lessons are general, and we briefly discuss how they apply to private stocks of physical and human capital.     

Getting the word out: Enforcement information dissemination and compliance behavior

The question for the tax authority is how individuals become aware of enforcement effort. To be an effective tool in reducing tax evasion taxpayers must be aware of the current audit and penalty regime. We use laboratory experiments to examine the compliance impact of types of information dissemination regarding audit frequency and results. The information includes “official” information disseminated by the tax authority, and “unofficial”, or informal, communications among taxpayers. Our results indicate that the effect of the type of post-audit information is conditional on whether the taxpayer is well informed of the audit rate prior to filing. We find that the tax authority would be served by pre-announcing audit rates credibly and by emphasizing the previous period audit frequency in annual reporting of enforcement effort.     

Second-best optimal taxation of capital and labor in a developing economy

As commercial integration reduces the reliance on foreign trade taxation, raising tax revenue has become a major concern for the governments of developing economies. This paper examines how the tax burden in a developing economy should be distributed between capital income and labor income. We study a two-sector model, where the traditional sector is “informal” and consequently cannot be taxed by the government. In this setup, we find that the optimal (second-best) tax structure in order to raise a certain amount of revenue requires to tax capital income at least as much as labor income, and possibly more.     

Building and Interpreting Macro/Micro Estimates of Accrued‐to‐Date Pension Liabilities: French Reforms as a Case Study

Estimates of accrued‐to‐date pension liabilities (ADL) should become more widely accessible to statisticians and decision makers in the near future, in application of new SNA requirements. This raises two questions: how can such estimates be routinely produced, and what for? Microsimulation helps in answering the first question of the “how.” It allows ADL computations that take into account the complexity of pension rules. Concerning the “what for” question, it is known that ADL are not an indicator of global financial sustainability. Messages they convey are more interesting at the micro level, from a household perspective. This fosters the case for microsimulation which spontaneously generates consistent micro/macro results. We illustrate these points using the French situation as a case study. We emphasize one aspect of French reforms that may concern other countries as well: the move to price indexation and the connection it creates between sustainability and growth assumptions.     

Tax cuts and enterprises’ R&D intensity: Evidence from a natural experiment in China

This paper studies the impact of tax cuts on enterprises’ R&D intensity. We use a natural experiment involving China’s business tax changing to value-added tax (“BT to VAT”) to identify any causality. The results reveal that this tax reform has prompted enterprises to increase their research and development (R&D) investment. Specifically, a stronger ability to transfer tax, results in this change having a more significant promotional effect on enterprises’ R&D intensity. Further analysis demonstrates that firms with different ownership types and in different industries respond differently to the “BT to VAT” policy. Our findings are only significant for non-state-owned and other modern service enterprises. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical basis for detailed analyses of the effects of “BT to VAT” policy, particularly the government’s subsequent improvement to the tax reform policy, to further stimulate enterprise investments in R&D as well as industrial upgrading.     

Economic growth,corruption and tax evasion

In this paper, we explore tax revenues in a regime of widespread corruption in a growth model. We develop a Ramsey model of economic growth with a rival but non-excludable public good which is financed by taxes which can be evaded via corrupt tax inspectors. We prove that the relationship between the tax rate and tax collection, in a dynamic framework, is not unique, but is different depending on the relevance of the “shame effect”. We show that in all three cases — “low, middle and high shame” countries, the growth rate increases as the tax rate increases up to a threshold value, after which the growth rate begins to decrease as the tax rate increases. But, for intermediate tax rates, the rate of growth for “low shame” countries is lower than that of “uniform shame” countries which is, in turn, lower than that of “high shame” countries. This happens because the growth rate is more sensitive to variations of t in an honest country rather than in a corrupt country.     

Policy Design and Rent Seeking: Targeted versus Broad Based Intervention

The present paper analyzes how policy intervention should be designed so as to create industrialization. We focus on whether intervention should be targeted, promoting investment in specific firms or industries, or broad based, increasing the profitability of investment in general. Our main argument is that in areas with weak institutions, broad based policies should be chosen, while in areas with strong institutions, targeted policies may be less costly in moving the economy out of a poverty trap. The targeted policy is attractive because it internalized a demand externality, but is also more exposed to rent seeking, since “picking a winner” involves a greater measure of discretion in policy formulation and implementation. The broad based policy does not discriminate between industries and is, hence, less likely to be captured by rent seekers, but also does not take advantage of the demand externality.     

Robert Brenner on political accumulation and the transition to capitalism

This paper is an immanent critique of Robert Brenner’s writings on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The concept “immanent” is defined as a logic of implication, according to which a text or theory is evaluated within the terms that it sets for itself, to determine whether its objectives and assumptions are true in the way they are said to be true. Using this method of critique, the paper shows how Brenner’s concept of “political accumulation” undermines his own initial claim that the balance of class forces between lords and peasants determined the long-term trends of preindustrial Europe, in that this concept points toward intralord struggles dominated by military interests. The paper also discusses why Brenner’s account of France’s tax/office state seriously weakens his postulate that “surplus extracting relations” were the “fundamental” relation of fuedalism, on the grounds that office-holding reflected an unequal distribution of property based upon status. Finally, the paper draws out the theoretical implications of these contradictory instances, to delineate ways in which Brenner’s basic theory may be sublated within a more comprehensive account.     

Revising the conventional tax-effort principle

The standard methodology on tax-effort (i.e., the ratio of actual tax revenue to its optimal level) is to run a regression of actual tax revenue on countries’ specific (macroeconomic, demographic, geographical, political, social, and institutional) variables. The resulting predicted (fitted) values are then taken to represent the optimal (desired or maximum) level of tax revenue. The crucial issue of tracing out how the optimal tax revenue should be allocated to the fiscal objectives (equity, efficiency) does not seem to be of any interest to the researchers on tax-effort. The present paper argues that the standard methodology is not without faults and needs revising. We demonstrate that an optimal tax system can be safely derived from maximizing a utility function with respect to (in)direct tax rates. The manipulation of the first-order conditions, using a novel mathematical module, leads to an infinite number of optimal direct–indirect tax rates. The selection of the optimal mix of these tax rates is dependent on the country-specific households’ preferences over equity/efficiency, as they are formulated by voters’ volition in election periods. A simulation procedure helps understanding how the optimal tax revenue is chosen and how it can be optimally allocated to fiscal objectives, in the context of a panel data set including a large number of developed and developing countries. Throughout our text, the optimal tax revenue is defined as the sum of the products of the optimal (in)direct tax rates and their corresponding tax bases. In the simple Arrow–Debreu economy, the above sum is shown to be equal to the difference between income and consumption.     

Progressive Taxation, Tax Exemption, and Irreversible Investment under Uncertainty

We analyze the impact of progressive taxation on irreversible investment under uncertainty. We show that if tax exemption is lower than sunk cost, higher tax rate will decelerate optimal investment by increasing the optimal investment threshold, while if tax exemption exceeds sunk cost, three different regimes arise. For “small” volatilities the optimal investment threshold is a positive function of volatility, but independent of tax rate. For “medium” volatilities it is independent of both tax rate and volatility. Finally, for “high” volatilities the optimal investment threshold depends positively on volatility, but negatively on tax rate so that we have “tax paradox”.     

Plant location and strategic environmental policy with inter-sectoral linkages

In recent debates on trade liberalisation the concern has often been expressed that with more competitive international trade governments will be worried that by setting tougher environmental policies than their trading rivals they will put domestic producers at a competitive disadvantage, and in the extreme case this could lead to firms relocating production in other countries. The response by governments to such concerns will be to weaken environmental policies (‘eco-dumping’). In competitive markets such concerns are ill founded, but there is a small amount of literature which has analysed whether governments will indeed have incentives for eco-dumping in the more relevant case of markets where there are significant scale economies; even here there is no presumption that the outcome will involve eco-dumping.In this paper we extend the analysis of strategic environmental policy and plant location decisions by analysing the location decision of firms in different sectors which are linked through an input-output structure of intermediate production. The reason why we introduce inter-sectoral linkages between firms is that they introduce an additional factor, relative to those already analysed in the literature, in the plant location decision, which is the incentive for firms in different sectors to agglomerate in a single location. This has a number of important effects. First, there is now the possibility of multiple equilibria in location decisions of firms. Following from this there is the possibility of catastrophic effects where a small increase in an environmental tax can trigger the collapse of an industrial base in a country; however there is also the possibility that a country which raises its environmental tax could attract more firms to locate in that country, because of the way the tax affects incentives for agglomeration. Finally, and again related to the previous effects, there is the possibility of a hysteresis effect where raising an environmental tax in one country can cause firms to relocate to another country, but subsequently lowering that tax will not induce firms to relocate back into the original country.We consider a simple model with two countries, two industries, an upstream and a downstream sector, and two firms per industry. The analysis proceeds through a three-stage game: in the first stage the governments of the two countries set their environmental policies; in the second stage the firms in both industries choose how many plants to locate and where; in the third stage firms choose their output levels, with the demand for the upstream firms being determined endogenously by the production decisions of the downstream firms. We assume that there are no limits to production capacity, so that firms do not build more than one plant in any country. However, firms may build plants in different countries because of positive transport costs. Although the model appears very simple, it cannot be solved analytically, so all the conclusions must be drawn from numerical simulations.     

高新技术企业减税与企业创新

研究政府减税如何影响企业创新,对中国经济高质量发展意义重大。本文使用2008—2014年国家统计局全国创新调查企业数据库数据,运用动态面板门限模型并结合有效工具变量,研究高新技术企业减税对企业创新是否存在门限影响。研究发现：第一,高新技术企业减税对企业创新存在一个大小约为6500的“规模阈值”,15%的所得税优惠政策会促使高新技术企业的减税规模超过“规模阈值”,导致企业创新水平内卷化;第二,在同等条件下,相对于低研发强度的高新技术企业,高新技术企业减税对高研发强度企业创新的促进效应更强,尤其对员工物质激励水平和技术改造能力较高的高新技术企业,其减税规模对企业创新的促进效应更加突出;第三,在同等条件下,相对于欠发达地区的高新技术企业,高新技术企业减税对经济发达地区企业创新的促进效应更大。政府应对高新技术企业的减税规模设置一个上限,且所得税优惠税率应结合企业研发强度和地区经济发展水平进行浮动管理。     

增值税扩围改革有助于减轻服务业税负吗?——基于投入产出表的分析

增值税扩围改革对服务业行业流转税负担的影响同时包含"税率提高的增税效应"与"进项抵扣的减税效应"。利用投入产出表数据分析并测算增值税扩围改革影响各服务业行业流转税负变动的净效应,结果发现:不同服务业行业的税负变化情况差异较大,商务服务业等大多数行业的税负将减轻,但租赁业等部分行业的税负会加重,税改后的增值税税率水平选择与中间投入比率是影响服务业行业税负变动的主要因素。为了优化服务业发展的税收环境,使增值税扩围改革有助于减轻服务业的流转税负,应根据税负平衡点审慎选择服务业行业税改后适用的增值税税率。当前制定的租赁业、交通运输业的试点税率水平偏高,有必要予以降低。     

An economic analysis of the Packaging waste Recovery Note System in the UK

In order to cope with the increasing scarcity of final dump sites for household wastes, the UK recently introduced an environmental policy targeted at the firms that produce and sell products that generate packaging wastes. This policy requires such businesses to hold predetermined numbers of tradable credits called “Packaging waste Recovery Notes” (PRNs). This article provides insights into the economic implications of such a policy through a simple analytical model of a recyclable product and the PRN markets. Our analysis yields two particularly interesting results. First, an increase in the required recycling rate dampens the output and landfill waste levels, while the effect on the level of recycling activities is ambiguous. Second, an increase in the landfill tax always leads to an increase in the landfill waste. We also discuss how the socially optimal landfill tax in the presence of the PRN market should be chosen.     

“More is less”: the tax effects of ignoring flow externalities

Using a model of non-linear, non-monotone decay of the stock pollutant, and starting from the same initial conditions, the paper shows that an optimal tax that corrects for both stock and flow externalities may result in a lower tax, fewer cumulative emissions (less decay in emissions) and higher output at the steady state than a corrective tax that ignores the flow externality. This “more is less” result emphasizes that setting a corrective tax that ignores the flow externality, or imposing a corrective tax at too low a level where there exists only a stock externality, may affect both transitory and steady-state output, tax payments and cumulative emissions. The result has important policy implications for decision makers setting optimal corrective taxes and targeted emission limits whenever stock externalities exist.     

A Public Choice Approach to Strategic and Nonstrategic Environmental Policy

In this paper we take a public choice perspective on strategic environmental policy and international environmental agreements. We examine cooperative and noncooperative environmental policies under governments that are either welfare maximizers (“good dictators”) or tax revenue maximizers (“Leviathans”). We show that Leviathans can perform better in terms of welfare and that good dictators can set higher taxes. We then analyze international environmental agreements and show that the breakdown of environmental cooperation can indeed lead to a welfare gain for all signatory countries. Considering a delegation game between governments, we find that a Pareto‐superior Leviathan outcome can be the unique Nash equilibrium.     

Who Pays a Price on Carbon?

We use the 2003 Consumer Expenditure Survey and emissions estimates from an input-output model based on the 1997 US economy to estimate the incidence of a price on carbon induced by a cap-and-trade program or carbon tax in the context of the US. We present results on how much different income deciles pay for a carbon tax as well as which industries see the largest increase in costs due to a carbon tax. We illustrate the main determinant of the regressivity: consumption patterns for energy-intensive goods. Furthermore, on a per-capita basis a carbon price is much more regressive than calculations at the household level. We discuss policy options to offset the adverse distributional effects of a carbon emissions policy.     

An alternative approach to income taxation

We take an alternative approach to income taxation in this paper. We view the income tax schedule as the outcome of a voting process, rather than the optimal choice of a “benevolent social planner”. We show that it is very likely for majority voting to lead to the adoption of a regressive income tax schedule, depending on the per capita government revenue requirement and the mean productivity of the population, which is in sharp contrast with the result derived from the traditional “benevolent social planner” approach to income taxation; and that given the adoption of a regressive income tax schedule, the income tax schedule would become less regressive as the ratio of the per capita government revenue requirement over the mean productivity of the population increases. Our work might shed some light on both the prevalent adoption of regressive state tax systems and the cross-state difference in terms of tax systems.