IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ajagec/v94y2012i2p347-353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does the Indexing of Government Transfers Make Carbon Pricing Progressive?

Author

Listed:
  • Don Fullerton
  • Garth Heutel
  • Gilbert E. Metcalf

Abstract

We analyze both the uses side and the sources side incidence of domestic climate policy using an analytical general equilibrium model, taking into account the degree of government program indexing. When transfer programs such as Social Security are explicitly indexed to inflation, higher energy prices automatically lead to cost-of-living adjustments for recipients. We show results with no indexing, 100 percent indexing, and partial indexing based on our analysis of actual transfer programs. When households are classified by annual income, the indexing of U.S. transfers is not enough to offset the regressive uses side, but when they are classified by annual expenditures as a proxy for permanent income, transfer indexing does offset regressivity across the lowest income groups.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Don Fullerton & Garth Heutel & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2012. "Does the Indexing of Government Transfers Make Carbon Pricing Progressive?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(2), pages 347-353.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:94:y:2012:i:2:p:347-353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aar096
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rausch Sebastian & Metcalf Gilbert E. & Reilly John M & Paltsev Sergey, 2010. "Distributional Implications of Alternative U.S. Greenhouse Gas Control Measures," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-46, July.
    2. Burtraw, Dallas & Sweeney, Richard & Walls, Margaret, 2009. "The Incidence of U.S. Climate Policy: Alternative Uses of Revenues From a Cap-and-Trade Auction," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 62(3), pages 497-518, September.
    3. Fullerton Don & Heutel Garth, 2011. "Analytical General Equilibrium Effects of Energy Policy on Output and Factor Prices," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, January.
    4. Kevin A. Hassett & Aparna Mathur & Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2009. "The Incidence of a U.S. Carbon Tax: A Lifetime and Regional Analysis," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 155-178.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Fullerton, Don & Monti, Holly, 2013. "Can pollution tax rebates protect low-wage earners?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 539-553.
    2. Nils Ohlendorf & Michael Jakob & Jan Christoph Minx & Carsten Schröder & Jan Christoph Steckel, 2021. "Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing: A Meta-Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(1), pages 1-42, January.
    3. Gilbert E. Metcalf & Aparna Mathur & Kevin A. Hassett, 2011. "Distributional Impacts in a Comprehensive Climate Policy Package," NBER Chapters, in: The Design and Implementation of US Climate Policy, pages 21-34, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Rausch, Sebastian & Metcalf, Gilbert E. & Reilly, John M., 2011. "Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: A general equilibrium approach with micro-data for households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(S1), pages 20-33.
    5. Roberton C. Williams III & Hal Gordon & Dallas Burtraw & Jared C. Carbone & Richard D. Morgenstern, 2015. "The Initial Incidence of a Carbon Tax Across Income Groups," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 68(1), pages 195-214, March.
    6. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2014. "Using the Tax System to Address Competition Issues With a Carbon Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(4), pages 779-806, December.
    7. Adam Rose & Dan Wei & Fynnwin Prager, 2012. "Distributional Impacts Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading: Alternative Allocation And Recycling Strategies In California," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 603-617, October.
    8. Fullerton Don & Heutel Garth, 2011. "Analytical General Equilibrium Effects of Energy Policy on Output and Factor Prices," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, January.
    9. Nils Ohlendorf & Michael Jakob & Jan Christoph Minx & Carsten Schröder & Jan Christoph Steckel, 2018. "Distributional Impacts of Climate Mitigation Policies - a Meta-Analysis," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1776, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Joshua Blonz & Dallas Burtraw & Margaret Walls, 2012. "Social safety nets and US climate policy costs," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 474-490, July.
    11. Lucas W. Davis & Christopher R. Knittel, 2019. "Are Fuel Economy Standards Regressive?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 37-63.
    12. Don Fullerton, 2011. "Six Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(6), pages 923-929, June.
    13. Fell, Harrison & Li, Shanjun & Paul, Anthony, 2014. "A new look at residential electricity demand using household expenditure data," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 37-47.
    14. Last Name, First Name, 2009. "Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing Policies in the Electricity Sector," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-43, Resources for the Future.
    15. Bas (B.) Jacobs & Rick (F.) van der Ploeg, 2017. "Should Pollution Taxes Be Targeted At Income Redistribution?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-070/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. de Bruin, Kelly & Yakut, Aykut Mert, 2024. "Efficiency–equity trade-off in the Irish carbon tax: A CGE investigation of mixed revenue recycling schemes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    17. Rausch, Sebastian & Schwarz, Giacomo A., 2016. "Household heterogeneity, aggregation, and the distributional impacts of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 43-57.
    18. Martin Beznoska & Johanna Cludius & Viktor Steiner, 2012. "The Incidence of the European Union Emissions Trading System and the Role of Revenue Recycling: Empirical Evidence from Combined Industry- and Household-Level Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1227, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Ian Parry & Baoping Shang & Nate Vernon & Philippe Wingender & Tarun Narasimhan, 2020. "Evaluating policies to implement the Paris Agreement: a toolkit with application to China," Chapters, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Climate Change, chapter 2, pages 32-67, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Jacobs, Bas & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Redistribution and pollution taxes with non-linear Engel curves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 198-226.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:oup:ajagec:v:94:y:2012:i:2:p:347-353. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.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.