IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13753.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Using Tax Expenditures to Achieve Energy Policy Goals

Author

Listed:
  • Gilbert E. Metcalf

Abstract

Tax expenditures are a major source of support for energy related activities in the federal budget exceeding direct budget support for energy by a factor of nearly six. Focusing on the policy goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum consumption, I find these tax expenditures highly cost ineffective at best and counterproductive at worse. The tax credit for ethanol is an example of a cost ineffective subsidy. The cost of reducing CO2 emissions through this subsidy exceeded $1,700 per ton of CO2 avoided in 2006 and the cost of reducing oil consumption over $85 per barrel.

Suggested Citation

  • Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2008. "Using Tax Expenditures to Achieve Energy Policy Goals," NBER Working Papers 13753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13753
    Note: EEE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13753.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2006. "Energy Conservation in the United States: Understanding its Role in Climate Policy," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0609, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    2. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2005. "Does Britain or the United States Have the Right Gasoline Tax?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1276-1289, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cristian Huse & Claudio Lucinda, 2014. "The Market Impact and the Cost of Environmental Policy: Evidence from the Swedish Green Car Rebate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 393-419, August.
    2. Morgenroth, Edgar & Murphy, Martin & Moore, Kyle, 2018. "The environmental impacts of fiscal instruments," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT351, August.
    3. Guerriero, Carmine, 2013. "The political economy of incentive regulation: Theory and evidence from US states," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 91-107.
    4. Doug Auld, 2008. "The Ethanol Trap: Why Policies to Promote Ethanol as Fuel Need Rethinking," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 268, July.
    5. Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2009. "Tax Policies for Low-Carbon Technologies," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 62(3), pages 519-533, September.
    6. Arik Levinson, 2011. "Belts and Suspenders: Interactions among Climate Policy Regulations," NBER Chapters, in: The Design and Implementation of US Climate Policy, pages 127-140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Guerriero, Carmine, 2011. "Accountability in government and regulatory policies: Theory and evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 453-469.
    8. Li, Shanjun & Linn, Joshua & Spiller, Elisheba, 2010. "Evaluating “Cash-for-Clunkers”: Program Effect on Auto Sales, Jobs, and the Environment," RFF Working Paper Series dp-10-39, Resources for the Future.
    9. Chandra, Ambarish & Gulati, Sumeet & Kandlikar, Milind, 2010. "Green drivers or free riders? An analysis of tax rebates for hybrid vehicles," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 78-93, September.
    10. Li, Shanjun & Linn, Joshua & Spiller, Elisheba, 2013. "Evaluating “Cash-for-Clunkers”: Program effects on auto sales and the environment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 175-193.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2007. "Federal Tax Policy Towards Energy," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 21, pages 145-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Börjesson, Maria & Asplund, Disa & Hamilton, Carl, 2021. "Optimal kilometre tax for electric passenger cars," Working Papers 2021:3, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    3. Bergeaud, Antonin & Raimbault, Juste, 2020. "An empirical analysis of the spatial variability of fuel prices in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 131-143.
    4. Hirte, Georg & Tscharaktschiew, Stefan, 2018. "The impact of anti-congestion policies and the role of labor-supply margins," CEPIE Working Papers 04/18, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    5. Mr. Jon Strand, 2007. "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Supply for the G-7 Countries, with Emphasis on Germany," IMF Working Papers 2007/299, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Parry, Ian & Portney, Paul & Harrington, Winston & Gruenspecht, Howard, 2003. "The Economics of Fuel Economy Standards," RFF Working Paper Series dp-03-44, Resources for the Future.
    7. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2009. "Designing a Carbon Tax to Reduce U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 3(1), pages 63-83, Winter.
    8. Liu, Shen & Colson, Gregory & Hao, Na & Wetzstein, Michael, 2018. "Toward an optimal household solar subsidy: A social-technical approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 377-387.
    9. Kenneth T. Gillingham & Sébastien Houde & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2021. "Consumer Myopia in Vehicle Purchases: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 207-238, August.
    10. Dr Barry Naughten, 2013. "Emissions Pricing, 'Complementary Policies' and 'Direct Action' in the Australian Electricity Supply Sector: 'Lock-in' and Investment," CCEP Working Papers 1304, Centre for Climate & Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    11. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2009. "Should Urban Transit Subsidies Be Reduced?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 700-724, June.
    12. Gilles Duranton & Geetika Nagpal & Matthew A. Turner, 2020. "Transportation Infrastructure in the US," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Analysis and Infrastructure Investment, pages 165-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Tirachini, Alejandro & Proost, Stef, 2021. "Transport taxes and subsidies in developing countries: The effect of income inequality aversion," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    14. Michelle Harding & Chiara Martini & Alastair Thomas, 2014. "Taxing Energy Use in the OECD," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    15. Rik L. Rozendaal & Herman R. J. Vollebergh, 2021. "Policy-Induced Innovation in Clean Technologies: Evidence from the Car Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 9422, CESifo.
    16. Lawrence Goulder, 2007. "Distributional and Efficiency Impacts of Increased U.S. Gasoline Taxes," Discussion Papers 07-009, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Caplan, Arthur J. & Acharya, Ramjee, 2019. "Optimal vehicle use in the presence of episodic mobile-source air pollution," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 185-204.
    18. Xiao, Junji & Ju, Heng, 2011. "The impacts of air-pollution motivated automobile consumption tax adjustments of China," MPRA Paper 27743, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Hauch, Jens & Pilegaard, Ninette & Bjørner, Thomas Bue, 2007. "Danish Transport Regulation and Labour Market Effects," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2007(1), pages 215-236.
    20. Pérez-Martínez, P.J. & Vassallo-Magro, J.M., 2013. "Changes in the external costs of freight surface transport In Spain," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 61-76.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13753. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.