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Economists endorse taxes as a cost-effective means of reducing pollution. But policy makers raise concerns about their regressivity, or disproportional burden on poorer families, preferring instead to regulate energy efficiency. I...
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Economists endorse taxes as a cost-effective means of reducing pollution. But policy makers raise concerns about their regressivity, or disproportional burden on poorer families, preferring instead to regulate energy efficiency. I first show that in theory, energy efficiency standards are more regressive than energy taxes, not less. I then provide an example using data on automobiles in the United States. Taxing gas would be less regressive than regulating the fuel economy of cars if the two policies are compared on a revenue-equivalent basis.
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Official international trade statistics report commerce between every pair of countries twice: once for the importing country and once for the exporter. In principle, the two values differ only by transport costs, but as has long ...
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Official international trade statistics report commerce between every pair of countries twice: once for the importing country and once for the exporter. In principle, the two values differ only by transport costs, but as has long been recognized, they also differ systematically with product-level tariffs. We aggregate across products to construct a dataset of annual aggregate bilateral trade, separately for the importer and exporter reports. With these data, we show that the reporting differences also vary systematically with country characteristics aside from tariffs: incomes, auditing standards, corruption, and trade agreements.
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This paper uses the historical experience of U.S. states to examine the reasons why energy intensity has declined in some places more than in others. In aggregate, U.S. energy per dollar of GDP declined 34 percent between 1997 and...
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This paper uses the historical experience of U.S. states to examine the reasons why energy intensity has declined in some places more than in others. In aggregate, U.S. energy per dollar of GDP declined 34 percent between 1997 and 2018, but across states the decline varied from 9 percent in Iowa to 52 percent in Washington State. I show that none of this variation is explained by either deindustrialization or the changing composition of states' industrial sectors. Although some U.S. state policies are significantly correlated with these changes, they are not correlated in a way that explains the changing overall state energy intensities. Energy intensity declines do not appear to be a result of leakage to other states or countries and have not been associated with slower economic growth. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Environmental Engel curves (EECs) describe households' incomes and the pollution necessary to produce the goods and services they consume. We calculate 29 annual EECs from 1984 to 2012 for point-source air pollutants in the United...
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Environmental Engel curves (EECs) describe households' incomes and the pollution necessary to produce the goods and services they consume. We calculate 29 annual EECs from 1984 to 2012 for point-source air pollutants in the United States, revealing three clear results: EECs slope upward, have income elasticities less than 1, and shift down over time. Even without changes to production techniques, pollution would have declined despite growing incomes. This improvement can be attributed about equally to two trends: household income growth represented by movement along inelastic EECs and economy-wide changes represented by downward shifts in EECs over time.
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As of late 2020, the Trump administration had initiated almost 100 rollbacks of US environmental regulations. A careful assessment of the benefits and costs of rolling back an existing regulation can and should inform such decisio...
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As of late 2020, the Trump administration had initiated almost 100 rollbacks of US environmental regulations. A careful assessment of the benefits and costs of rolling back an existing regulation can and should inform such decisions. When assessing the potential rollback of an existing regulation, analysts can often learn from the regulation's implementation through retrospective analysis as well as from advances in scientific knowledge. We discuss recent actions concerning the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) to illustrate the potential lessons from doing so. In the case of MATS, advances in science have shed light on broader exposure pathways and previously unquantified health effects, suggesting that the benefits of reducing mercury emissions may exceed previous estimates. At the same time, changes in the energy sector have altered the mix of fuels used to produce electricity, which impacts both the benefits and the costs of the regulation.
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Most taxes in the United States are levied on income flows, not capital stocks. One notable exception is state and local property taxes. This note documents their magnitude and regressivity. Property taxes account for more than 30...
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Most taxes in the United States are levied on income flows, not capital stocks. One notable exception is state and local property taxes. This note documents their magnitude and regressivity. Property taxes account for more than 30% of state and local tax revenue, and amount to an effective wealth tax rate of 0.86% on the assets of the median US homeowner. The effective property-wealth tax rates are highest for younger, lower-income homeowners.
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In 2011 the US changed its automobile fuel economy standards from a uniform, fleet-wide average, miles per-gallon target, to one that varies with car sizes. Smaller cars now must meet stricter standards. While the motive for any p...
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In 2011 the US changed its automobile fuel economy standards from a uniform, fleet-wide average, miles per-gallon target, to one that varies with car sizes. Smaller cars now must meet stricter standards. While the motive for any policy change can be disputed, the consequence of this change looks like environmental protectionism, because the favored larger cars are disproportionately assembled in the US. The change imposes costs on imported cars equivalent to a tariff of $50 to $200 per vehicle. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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