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Uncertainty over future environmental taxes

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  • Bruce Larson
  • George Frisvold

Abstract

Besides static efficiency properties, environmental policies should be evaluated in terms of their longer-run impacts on investment and technological change to reduce pollution and degradation of natural resources. Using a stochastic dynamic programming approach, this paper analyzes how uncertainty about a future environmental tax on a polluting input alters investment in resource conservation and how such investment affects future demand for the polluting input. The impact on investment depends crucially on price elasticities of demand and on the manner in which investment shifts and rotates the demand schedule for the polluting input in the future. The expectation of a higher tax does not necessarily create stronger incentives for investment in resource conservation. More uncertainty about future policies does encourage investment if it makes a firm more responsive to future price changes and discourages investment if it makes a firm less responsive to price changes. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1996

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Larson & George Frisvold, 1996. "Uncertainty over future environmental taxes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(4), pages 461-471, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:8:y:1996:i:4:p:461-471
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00357414
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    Cited by:

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    2. LOFGREN Asa & MILLOCK Katrin & NAUGES Céline, 2007. "Using Ex Post Data to Estimate the Hurdle Rate of Abatement Investments - An application to the Swedish Pulp and Paper Industry and Energy Sector," LERNA Working Papers 07.06.227, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    3. Hammar, Henrik & Löfgren, Åsa, 2007. "Explaining adoption of end of pipe solutions and clean technologies," Working Papers 102, National Institute of Economic Research.
    4. Carlsson, F., 1999. "Incentive-based environmental regulation of domestic civil aviation in Sweden," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 75-82, April.
    5. Åsa Löfgren & Katrin Millock & Céline Nauges, 2008. "Using ex post data to estimate the hurdle rate of abatement investments - an application to sulfur emissions from the Swedish pulp and paper industry and energy sector," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00261523, HAL.
    6. N.K. Warner-Merl, 1999. "An Emissions Tax in Siberia: Economic Theory, Firm Response, and Noncompliance in Imperfect Markets," Working Papers ir99027, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    7. Hammar, Henrik & Löfgren, Åsa, 2010. "Explaining adoption of end of pipe solutions and clean technologies--Determinants of firms' investments for reducing emissions to air in four sectors in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3644-3651, July.

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