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Environmental Taxes in an Economy with Distorting Taxes and a Heterogeneous Population

Author

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  • Hoel, Michael

    (Dept. of Economics, University of Oslo)

Abstract

During the last couple of decades, there has been a large literature discussing how the properties of emission taxes are affected by the existence of distortionary taxes. Most of this literature ignores distributional aspects of environmental taxes and other types of environmental policy instruments. The present paper considers a very simple model with heterogeneous households, differing in income earning ability. The tax system i s not necessarily fully optimal. Instead, a tax function is assumed the be exogenously given, but the parameters of this tax function are opmtimally chosen. The rule for the second-best opmtimal environmental tax is derived and compared with the Pigovian rule. The results derived in the present paper are related to the results from the literature on public goods provision under distortionary taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoel, Michael, 2008. "Environmental Taxes in an Economy with Distorting Taxes and a Heterogeneous Population," Memorandum 04/2008, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:osloec:2008_004
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    File URL: https://www.sv.uio.no/econ/english/research/unpublished-works/working-papers/pdf-files/2008/Memo-04-2008.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental taxes; public goods; distortionary taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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