Tax Reform,Structural Unemployment and the Environment

The effects of environmental tax reform, i.e., using the proceeds of a higher energy tax rate to lower the labour tax rate, on wage formation, employment and environmental quality are analysed in the context of a small open economy with structural unemployment caused by hiring costs. We find that such a reform may boost employment if it shifts the tax burden away from workers towards those without employment in the formal sector. Environmental tax reform succeeds in shifting the tax burden away from workers in the formal sector if higher energy taxes reduce earnings in the informal sector by reducing labour productivity.     

Environmental Tax Reform and Growth: Income Tax Cuts or Profits Tax Reduction

This study investigates how recycling revenues, which are generated by environmental taxes, affect growth through different types of tax cuts. A growth model with creative destruction (Aghion and Howitt Econometrica 60(2):323–351,1992, Aghion and Howitt The economics of growth, 2009) is modified to include the production of final output as a source of pollution. This paper demonstrates that introducing an environmental tax, accompanied by either an income tax cut or a profits tax reduction, increases the output growth rate. The analysis also shows that, if technological change is resulted from deliberate activities of economic agents, the reduction of the profits tax rate for an intermediate monopolist is more growth-enhancing than an income tax cut since a profits tax reduction directly promotes R&D activities.     

Environmental Tax Reform and Government Expenditure

In a simple model of production with an imported polluting resource and involuntary unemployment we consider the effects of energy taxes, holding the real wage constant, under differing levels of government expenditure and externalities. Simulations reveal conflict between the goals of net welfare, employment and profitability over much of the relevant parameter range, thus extending the usual discussion of multiple dividends. However, potential net welfare and employment gains are substantial for plausible parameters. The optimal energy tax declines as government expenditure rises and is less than the Pigovian tax for plausible externalities.     

Consequences of Environmental Tax Reform for Unemployment and Welfare

We investigate the welfare effects of environmental tax reform, i.e. raising environmental taxes and using the proceeds to reduce distortionary taxes on labour. The framework of analysis is a small open economy with involuntary unemployment due to a rigid consumer wage. Environmental tax reform boosts not only environmental quality but also employment if substitution between labour and resources is easy, the production share of the fixed factor is large, and the initial tax rates on resources and profits are small. If the initial tax system is sub-optimal with a negligible tax on resources, profits rise as well.     

策略性环境政策:环境税和减排补贴的比较分析

文章把战略性贸易政策模型扩展到环境领域,策略性环境政策认为政府有动机通过降低环境标准补贴出口企业,以达到利润转移的目的.文章分析了策略性环境政策中比较受忽视的一部分--环境技术补贴,本国政府结合使用环境税和减排补贴,我们验证了政府使用策略性环境政策的动机,得到了最优的污染排放税率,认为虽然环境政策仍旧不能消除生产带来的环境损害,但是环境技术补贴提高了本国的环境标准,企业会更少地遇到绿色壁垒报复.     

企业税负、就业税盾与就业激励

利用2001—2009年间我国非上市工业企业的数据,分析了我国企业所得税税负与就业税盾对就业的激励作用。研究结果表明,我国企业所得税税负的适当提高有利于扩大企业对劳动力的需求,旧所得税法中对外资企业实行的低税率优惠政策反而不利于就业;工资总额据实扣除的就业税盾有助于激励企业增加就业,但研发费的加计扣除政策即使放松条件后对就业的激励作用仍不明显。鉴于我国当前税负对就业的促进作用,应当实时监控企业税负对就业的影响作用,避免税负过高对企业就业产生抑制作用。此外,还应增加企业就业税盾的扣除。     

Ecological Tax Reforms and the Environment: A Note

There is widespread agreement on the ability of ecological tax reforms to improve the environmental quality. This paper, however, points out that a negative marginal impact on the environment cannot be ruled out for revenue-neutral ecological tax reforms in both first-best and second-best frameworks. Therefore, sufficient conditions are derived which ensure the improvement of the environmental quality.     

铸币税、减税与税制改革

在内需不足时期应该实行减税政策，以刺激民间需求的增长，但由于政府执行积极的财政政策，客观上造成财政赤字日益增加且难以弥补，这又为减税政策的实施带来了困难。征收铸币税可以有效地克服这一矛盾，可以同时实现弥补财政赤字和增加公共投资的双重目的，进一步扩大内需并推动经济更快地发展。从我国的实际出发，提出征收铸币税后我国可实行的各项减税的措施和方案，并就我国的税制改革提出了意见和看法。     

促进我国经济与环境和谐发展的财税政策

改革开放以来,我国经济保持了多年的快速增长,但另一方面环境问题也相当严峻。我国现行财税政策在经济与环境和谐发展方面存在环境污染治理投资偏低、排污收费制度不合理、控制污染的税收制度不太健全等问题,应在借鉴国外经验的基础上,采取加大环境保护的财政投入、拓宽环保资金的筹资渠道、建立政府绿色采购制度、完善环境保护的税收政策等措施,促进经济与环境的和谐发展。     

Environmental Protection and Urban Unemployment: Environmental Policy Reform in a Polluted Dualistic Economy

This paper explores sufficient conditions for the welfare‐improving environmental policy reform in the Harris–Todaro economy. A rise in the pollution tax rate in the urban manufacturing has spillover effects on the two labor market distortions: the less‐than‐optimal manufacturing employment and the urban unemployment. If both are weakened the welfare improves. Otherwise, we need to develop an alternative sufficient condition. It is shown that there exists a range of welfare‐improving pollution tax rates, and that it corresponds to the lower values of tax rate. This range may shrink by the wage subsidy policy and the technological change toward less pollution‐intensive techniques.     

论环境保护视角下消费税改革的再次深化

消费税作为我国目前的重要税种之一,是通过影响人们消费方式和引导企业生产经营行为而发挥环境保护作用的,同时也具有调节收入分配的功能。经过近些年来的不断调整和改革,我国消费税制度在促进节能减排和支持环境保护方面的政策导向日益凸显,但在征税范围设定、税率设计和征税环节选择等方面仍然存在着诸多亟待解决的问题。消费税制度改革的深化,应与环境保护相关税收体系的整体布局相互协调,与国际通行的环境保护税制相接轨,着力突出其支持节能减排、促进环境保护的功效,兼顾其收入分配的职能,并采取相应的、切实有效的对策措施。     

The Optimal Environmental Tax and Urban Unemployment in an Open Economy

This paper investigates how a rise in the urban pollution tax rate may affect urban unemployment and welfare in a small open Harris–Todaro (HT) model with intersectoral capital mobility. First, by formulating urban pollution as a dirty input in manufacturing, we find that an increase in the urban pollution tax rate can increase the level of urban unemployment even with intersectoral capital mobility. That is, the optimistic finding by Rapanos (2007 ) that environmental protection policy reduces urban unemployment in the long run does not always hold. Second, the (sub)optimal pollution tax rate under urban unemployment is higher than the Pigouvian tax rate (the marginal damage of pollution). This result opposes those of Beladi and Chao (2006 ) for a closed HT economy and that of Tsakiris et al. (2008 ) for an open HT economy with sector‐specific capital.     

The Relative Earnings from Self and Paid Employment: A Time-series Analysis for the UK

We investigate the determinants of variations in the reported relative earnings of self-employed and paid-employed workers in the United Kingdom, focusing in particular on the significant decline which has taken place since 1980. We find that the main factors behind this decline have been the rise in the rate of self-employment itself and a reduction in the level of capital per self-employed worker; effects which we associate with a decline in the quality of the average self-employed business. Changes in the tax rates on income and in the sectoral composition of GDP helped to reduce the scale of the decline in self-employment relative earnings to some degree.     

Asymmetric Adjustment Costs, Asymmetric Pricing and Employment: Evidence from the UK

This paper uses an asymmetric multivariate model to investigate asymmetries in employment and pricing behaviour by firms. This generalises the approach of Granger and Lee (1989) and also exploits the cross equation restrictions on the equations for prices and employment implied by a restricted cost function—the dual to a Cobb‐Douglas production function. Our results suggest that both prices and employment respond asymmetrically to shocks to costs and demand.     

Problems and Prospects for the UK Economy*

Spokesmen for Ms Thatcher's government have repeatedly stated that the British economy was 'the sick man of Europe' in the years before 1979; a policy of demand management in pursuit of full employment had brought only temporary relief, whereas her government's firm policy aimed at a long-term cure. This article considers how far this diagnosis was correct, what the new policies were, how the economy has fared in the light of these policies and the development of North Sea oil and why things turned out that way. It concludes with a brief assessment of future prospects.     

Environmental Quality,Medical Care Demand and Environmental Tax Interactions

Assuming that improvements in environmental quality lead to lower demand for medical care, it has been shown that general-equilibrium interactions with the tax-distorted labor market reduce the benefits from such improvements, and thus lower the second-best optimal environmental tax. This paper provides some insights on how the link between environmental quality, individual’s health capital, and the demand for medical care affects the analysis of pollution taxes. The paper develops structural conditions under which improvements in environmental quality decrease/increase the demand for medical care and discusses their implications for environmental tax interactions.      

Income Tax, Property Tax, and Tariff in a Small Open Economy

Why do some countries enjoy high economic growth rates while some suffer in “low-growth traps”? Why are tax policies in different countries so different? Some suggest that it is exactly these differences in government policies which contribute to the difference in economic growth rates. This paper considers a small open economy which sustains its economic growth by adopting new technologies. When the value of initial wealth is “relatively small,” policies which promote growth most result in the highest welfare. In other cases, policies that discourage growth most may be welfare-maximizing.     

Tax perceptions and the demand for public expenditure: evidence from UK micro-data

Using responses from the 1995 British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS), this paper assesses if there is evidence of voter misperception of tax costs. We find convincing evidence of income tax (IT) and value added tax (VAT) misperceptions, with a systematic bias towards overestimation of tax burdens for VAT, contrary to predictions of the fiscal illusion literature. We then integrate tax misperceptions into a model of demand for public expenditure. Voters' spending preferences are strongly related to their incomes, actual tax costs, and other fiscal-related household characteristics. A tendency to overestimate tax burdens appears to have only a modest influence on demands for public spending.     

Real Wages,Demand and Employment in the UK 1921–1938: A Disaggregated Analysis

This paper uses the Layard and Nickell model of the labour market to examine the determinants of employment at a sectoral level for the interwar UK economy. Sectoral level data permits examination of the differing responses to changes in the determinants of employment. Estimation of employment functions indicates significant elasticities with respect to aggregate demand variables across a wide range of sectors but less support for a negative real wage effect, particularly in those industries responsible for major losses in employment. The evidence is therefore more consistent with the low-aggregate-demand explanation of labour market behaviour than it is with the high-real-wage hypothesis.