中国电力行业减排政策——基于电力需求函数的实证分析

利用2003—2015年中国的省际面板数据,通过估计电力需求函数模拟碳税的政策效果,为电力行业减排政策的制定提供了参考。结果表明:随着中国经济进入新常态,电价对电力需求的影响减弱,产业结构特别是工业内部结构的调整对电力需求和电力消费结构产生一定影响;由于电力需求对电价变动不敏感,因此碳税的减排效果有限;为实现减排目标,政府需要征收高额碳税,但这在现有的电价水平下较难实施;从减排效果和实施难度两个方面来看,当前暂不开征碳税的减排政策具有一定合理性;与碳税相比,加快供给侧结构性改革、降低火力发电比重,能够更有效地实现减排目标;现阶段政府应将调整电源结构作为节能减排工作的重点。     

Profit-maximizing R&D in response to a random carbon tax

This paper determines a firm’s profit-maximizing R&D response to an uncertain carbon tax, for two different R&D programs: cost reduction of low carbon energy technologies and emissions reductions of currently economic technologies. We find that optimal R&D does not increase monotonically in a carbon tax. R&D into alternative technologies increases only if the firm is flexible enough; R&D into conventional technologies first increases then decreases in a carbon tax. Firms that are very flexible may increase R&D into alternative technologies when the uncertainty surrounding a carbon tax is increased; otherwise firms will generally decrease R&D investment in uncertainty.     

How may a carbon tax transform Australian electricity industry? A CGE analysis

The carbon tax policy proposed by Australian government has triggered deep concerns about the high electricity prices facing households and the sustainability of electricity industry. By employing a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and an environmentally extended Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), this article simulates the effect of Australian carbon tax on the electricity industry. The modelling results show that the wholesale electricity prices indeed increase by about 90%, but the retailer prices only increase by 25%. The coal-fired electricity generators will reduce their output by 8% (for black-coal) to 18% (for brown-coal), but the profitability of the industry will drop dramatically. On the other hand, generators using oil, gas or renewable resources, will increase their output significantly and enjoy a handsome profit. Through the price, cost and profitability mechanisms, the carbon tax will transfer the Australian electricity generation to a low emission industry in the long term.     

Costly Tax Enforcement and Financial Repression

Using an overlapping generations production‐economy model characterized by financial repression, purposeful government expenditures and cost of tax collection, we analyse whether financial repression can be explained by the cost of raising taxes. We show that with public expenditures affecting utility of the agents, modest costs of tax collection tend to result in financial repression being pursued as an optimal policy by the consolidated government. However, when public expenditures are purposeless, the above result only holds for relatively higher costs of tax collection. But, more importantly, costs of tax collection cannot produce a monotonic increase in the reserve requirements. What are critical, in this regard, are the weights the consumer assigns to the public good in the utility function and the size of the government.     

Do tax cuts generate twin deficits? A multi‐country analysis

Abstract We study the effects of tax shocks on the budget and external deficits for 16 industrialized countries over the post‐1970 period. Our structural approach is based on a small open economy model where a tax cut affects the external deficit by two distinct channels. The demographic channel works through the overlapping‐generation structure of the model. The forecasting channel works through the dynamic structure of the model. Our empirical analysis documents that tax shocks generate twin deficits, and that both channels play important roles in explaining the positive comovement between the budget and external deficits.     

UNCERTAIN INCOME,UNCERTAIN TAXES AND RICARDIAN EQUIVALENCE*

L. K. C. Chan (1983) and R. B. Barsky et al. (1986) have demonstrated that a tax cut financed by bonds to be repaid from proportional income taxes on uncertain future income, by reducing the latter's riskiness, stimulates current consumption - Ricardian equivalence does not hold. However, their two-period models exclude the possibility that future taxes are uncertain. In this paper a three-period model is developed that, by allowing the government two periods in which to collect taxes, introduces ex ante tax rate uncertainty. This renders the result concerning Ricardian equivalence ambiguous. By comparison, taxes levied as lump sums and via a ‘lottery’ respectively produce the ‘usual’ effects (zero and negative) on consumption.     

How do market reforms affect China's responsiveness to environmental policy?

A large percentage of total investment in China is allocated by the central government at below-market interest rates in pursuit of non-economic objectives. This has resulted in low rates of return and a high number of non-performing loans, threatening the future health of the Chinese economy. As a result, reform of capital markets is a high priority of the Chinese government. At the same time, the country is implementing various environmental policies to deal with serious pollution issues. In this paper we ask how reforms of the capital market will affect the functioning of a carbon tax. This allows us to assess how China's willingness to join global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is influenced by China's current efforts to reduce investment subsidies. We compare the costs of a carbon tax in a reformed economy with the costs of a carbon tax in the current subsidized economy. We find that in the subsidized economy the tax-interaction effect dampens the effect of a carbon tax resulting in smaller reductions in emissions than what would result in a reformed economy. Importantly, we also find that the effect on economic welfare from a carbon tax is lower in the subsidized economy; in fact, for lower levels of reductions, the carbon tax is actually welfare improving. These results have important implications for an economy undergoing economic transition. The carbon tax rate required to achieve a certain level of emission reductions will be higher in an economy with capital subsidies. However, the welfare implications of the tax indicate that the current system with capital subsidies is highly distorting implying that there is a high efficiency cost for the non-economic objectives the government is pursuing by maintaining this system of subsidies.     

Future fiscal and budgetary shocks

We study the effects of future tax and budgetary shocks in a non-monetary and possibly non-Ricardian economy. An (unanticipated) temporary labor tax cut to be effective on a given future date—a delayed “debt bomb”—causes at once a drop in the (unit) value placed on the firms' business asset, the customer, with the result that share prices, the hourly wage, and employment drop in tandem. This paradox of reduced activity through announcement of future “stimulus” does not hinge on an upward jump of long interest rates. A future tax-rate cut lacking a “sunset” provision has the same negative effects.     

Carbon Taxes and Joint Implementation. An Applied General Equilibrium Analysis for Germany and India

Germany has committed itself toreducing its carbon emissions by 25 percent in2005 as compared to 1990 emission levels. Toachieve this goal, the government has recentlylaunched an environmental tax reform whichentails a continuous increase in energy taxesin conjunction with a revenue-neutral cut innon-wage labor costs. This policy is supposedto yield a double dividend, reducing both, theproblem of global warming and high unemploymentrates. In addition to domestic actions,international treaties on climate protectionallow for the supplementary use of flexibleinstruments to exploit cheaper emissionreduction possibilities elsewhere. One concreteoption for Germany would be to enter jointimplementation (JI) with developing countriessuch as India where Germany pays emissionreduction abroad rather than meeting itsreduction target solely by domestic action. Inthis paper, we investigate whether anenvironmental tax reform cum JI providesemployment and overall efficiency gains ascompared to an environmental tax reformstand-alone. We address this question in theframework of a large-scale general equilibriummodel for Germany and India where Germany mayundertake JI with the Indian electricitysector. Our main finding is that JI offsetslargely the adverse effects of carbon emissionconstraints on the German economy. JIsignificantly lowers the level of carbon taxesand thus reduces the total costs of abatementas well as negative effects on labor demand. Inaddition, JI triggers direct investment demandfor energy efficient power plants produced inGermany. This provides positive employmenteffects and additional income for Germany. ForIndia, joint implementation equips itselectricity industry with scarce capital goodsleading to a more efficient power productionwith lower electricity prices for the economyand substantial welfare gains.     

Pollution Abatement Investment When Environmental Regulation Is Uncertain

In a dynamic model of a risk-neutral competitive firm that can lower its pollution emissions per unit of output by building up abatement capital stock, we examine the effect of a higher pollution tax rate on abatement investment both under full certainty and when the timing or the size of the tax increase is uncertain. We show that a higher pollution tax encourages abatement investment if it does not exceed a certain threshold rate. However, akin to the Diamond-Mirrlees tax anomaly, it is possible that a higher pollution tax rate results in more pollution. The magnitude uncertainty discourages abatement investment, but at the time of the actual tax increase the abatement investment path may shift either upward or downward. On the other hand, when the timing is uncertain, the abatement investment path always jumps upward, thus suggesting that the effect of magnitude uncertainty on the optimal investment path may be more pronounced than that of timing uncertainty. Further, we show that the ad hoc practice of raising the discount rate to account for the uncertainty leads to underinvestment in abatement capital. We show how the size of this underinvestment bias varies with the future tax increase. Finally, we show that a credible threat to accelerate the tax increase can induce more abatement investment.     

The Effect of Feed-in Tariffs on Renewable Electricity Generation: An Instrumental Variables Approach

While carbon taxes and other market-based instruments are widely regarded as optimal for climate mitigation, political constraints have prevented governments from using them. Instead, narrower instruments, including the feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable electricity generation, have become popular. However, their causal effect on renewable electricity generation remains subject to uncertainty. We use instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect of FITs on renewable electricity generation in 26 industrialized countries, 1979–2005. We find that increasing the FIT by one U.S. cent (2000 constant prices) per kilowatt hour increases the percentage change in renewable electricity’s share of the total by 0.11 % points. All else constant, if a country implemented for a decade the sample mean FIT of three U.S. cents, the national share of renewable electricity would increase by 3.3 % points, which is more than the sample mean. In addition to demonstrating that the FIT is an effective way to increase renewable electricity generation, our approach lays the foundation for future studies of the causal effects of renewable energy policies.     

Environmental Policy in the Presence of Induced Technological Change

We examine the hypothesis that induced technological change (ITC) can dramatically lower the cost of a carbon tax in a static optimal tax model. The research and development sector is represented by an aggregate stock of energy-saving technology, which acts as a weak substitute with a polluting resource in the energy generation sector. Using this model, we analytically show how ITC occurs and affects the cost of a carbon tax. Applying quantitative estimates of the size of ITC to numerical simulations calibrated to the US economy, we find that existing empirical evidence can reduce the welfare cost of environmental tax reform by 12%. Our tests of alternative parameters show that this result is highly sensitive to the assumptions used, suggesting that ITC could result in much larger reductions in cost.     

The dual nature of public goods and congestion: the role of fiscal policy revisited

Abstract The role of fiscal policy is examined when public goods provide both productive and utility services. In the presence of congestion, the consumption tax is shown to be distortionary. Optimal fiscal policy involves using consumption‐based instruments in conjunction with the income tax. An income tax‐financed increase in government spending dominates both lump‐sum and consumption tax‐financing. Replacing the lump‐sum tax with an income tax to finance a given level of spending dominates introducing an equivalent consumption tax. These results contrast sharply with the literature, where the consumption tax is generally viewed as the least distortionary source of public finance.     

Markovian Social Security in Unequal Societies

In this paper, we develop a dynamic political‐economic theory of social security. We analytically characterize a Markov perfect equilibrium and find that the interaction between Markovian tax policy and tax distortion on private investment in human capital shapes an intertemporal policy rule, linking taxes positively over time. By allowing current taxpayers to influence their own future social security benefits, the positive intertemporal tax linkage provides political support for social security. Moreover, this positive tax linkage leads to a negative correlation between wage inequality and the size of a nation's social security system, consistent with the empirical pattern observed across OECD countries.     

Efficient Management of Insecure Fossil Fuel Imports through Taxing Domestic Green Energy?

A small open economy produces a consumer good as well as renewable (green) and fossil fuel based (brown) energy. It imports fossil fuel at an uncertain price and suffers from carbon emission damages. Unregulated competitive markets are shown to be inefficient. The implied market failures are due to the agents' attitudes toward risk, to risk shifting, and the uniform price for both types of energy. Under the plausible assumptions that consumers are prudent and at least as risk‐averse as the producers of brown energy, the risk can be efficiently managed by placing a tariff on fuel imports (which is equivalent to taxing carbon emissions in the model at hand) and taxing green energy. The need to tax green energy contradicts the widespread view that subsidization of green energy is an appropriate means to enhance energy security in countries depending on risky fossil fuel imports.     

Public budget composition,fiscal (de)centralization,and welfare

Abstract We study the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization in a dynamic federal economy where governments decide on budget size and its allocation between public education and infrastructure spending. We find that full centralization of tax and expenditure policies is optimal when infrastructure productivity is similar across regions. When differences are not too large, partial centralization is optimal. With strong differences, full decentralization becomes optimal. National steady‐state output tends to be highest under full decentralization. We provide a justification for the mixed evidence regarding the Oates conjecture by showing that full dominates partial decentralization, despite being inferior to complete decentralization.     

Measuring the Underground Economy with the Currency Demand Approach: A Reinterpretation of the Methodology,With an Application to Italy

We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of the value of cash transactions—the flow of cash withdrawn from bank accounts relative to total non‐cash payments—as the dependent variable in the money demand equation. This allows us to avoid unrealistic assumptions on the velocity of money and the absence of any irregular transaction in a given year, overcoming two severe critiques to the traditional CDA. Second, in place of the tax burden level, usually intended as the main motivation for non‐compliance, we include among the covariates two direct indicators of detected tax evasion. Finally, we control also for the role of illegal production considering crimes like drug dealing and prostitution, which—jointly with the shadow economy—contributes to the larger aggregate of the non‐observed economy and represents a significant component of total cash payments. We propose then an application of this “modified CDA” to a panel of 91 Italian provinces for the years 2005–08.     

Preparing for catastrophic climate change

We study optimal adaptation to climate change when the harmful consequences of global warming are associated with uncertain occurrence of abrupt changes. The adaptation policy entails the accumulation of a particular sort of capital that will eliminate or reduce the catastrophic damage of an abrupt climate change when (and if) it occurs. The occurrence date is uncertain. The policy problem involves balancing the tradeoffs between the (certain) investment cost prior to occurrence and the benefit (in reduced damage) that will be realized after the (uncertain) occurrence date. For stationary economies the optimal adaptation capital converges monotonically to a steady state. In most cases, investment begins immediately. However, if the initial adaptation capital exceeds a pre-specified threshold level, which lies above the optimal steady state, investment is delayed while the capital stock decreases (due to depreciation) and commences only when it reaches this threshold level. For growing economies the optimal adaptation capital stock approaches the maximal economic level above which further accumulation is ineffective.     

Carbon Taxation, Fuel Substitution and Welfare in Australia

This paper examines the potential role for fuel substitution in electricity production in reducing carbon dioxide emissions over a ten-year time horizon. This is achieved by adding fuel substitution to output changes resulting from demand responses arising from a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. A time profile of adjustments is developed. The tax required for Australia to meet a 20 per cent reduction in emissions from 1993 levels is calculated and effects on inequality and social welfare are examined. The paper also examines the potential effect of a subsidy towards the use of low-emission fuels, financed from the carbon tax. A subsidy produces an improvement in emissions abatement and a lower tax required to reach the emissions target.