国外环境税问题研究进展

对国外学者关于环境税收问题研究的新成果进行综述。诠释最优环境税定义及探寻不同条件假设下最优环境税率的确定,从一般均衡的视角考察环境质量对劳动供给决策的影响,探讨税收相互作用的效应和分析学者重点研究的双重红利及其存在条件。最后根据发达国家环境税政策运行的经验,分析将环境税作为环境管制措施引入发展中国家的可行性。     

Environmental taxation and the double dividend: A reader's guide

There has been considerable debate as to whether the revenue-neutral substitution of environmental taxes for ordinary income taxes might offer a double dividend: not only (1) improve the environment but also (2) reduce certain costs of the tax system. This paper articulates different notions of double dividend and examines the theoretical and empirical evidence for each. It also connects the double-dividend issue with principles of optimal environmental taxation in a second-best setting.A weak double-dividend claim-that returning tax revenues through cuts in distortionary taxes leads to cost savings relative to the case where revenues are returned lump sum-is easily defended on theoretical grounds and (thankfully) receives wide support from numerical simulations. The stronger versions contend that revenueneutral swaps of environmental taxes for ordinary distortionary taxes involve zero or negative gross costs. Theoretical analyses and numerical results tend to cast doubt on the strong double-dividend claim, although the theoretical case is not air-tight and the numerical evidence is mixed.