Market Access and WTO Border Tax Adjustments for Environmental Excise Taxes under Imperfect Competition

The literature identifies linkages between domestic environmental policies and trade, the treatment of imports being an important issue in administration of domestic environmental excise taxes. With the aim of ensuring foreign exporters do not attain a competitive advantage, border tax adjustments are used. Since most environmental excise taxes apply to intermediate goods, the relevant border tax adjustment applies to final imported goods. However, when both intermediate and final goods markets are oligopolistic, border tax adjustments may be non‐neutral. Moreover, even if market access is unchanged, border tax adjustments can still lead to redistribution of profits between domestic and foreign firms.