IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/spa/wpaper/2023wpecon4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Carbon Tax in the Shipping Sector: Assessing Economic and Environmental Impacts

Author

Listed:
  • Paula Pereda
  • Andrea Lucchesi
  • Thais Diniz
  • Rayan Wolf

Abstract

We discuss the impact of a carbon tax on the maritime transport sector, which is responsible for approximately 3% of global emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set long-term targets to reduce carbon intensity and achieve carbon neutrality, but the impact of the policies to achieve those targets on the global and local economies must be assessed. We use a global and multi-region Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model - Global Trade Analysis Project Energy-Environmental augmented version (GTAP-E) – to evaluate the environmental and economic effectiveness of a carbon tax of $50/tCO2e on international shipping. GTAP-E does not provide emissions data by transport mode and accurately estimating emissions is crucial to proposing a carbon pricing measure. Therefore, we have applied machine-learning techniques to predict the share of international trade transported by sea by sector, origin and destination countries and calculate ship emissions for each bilateral flow by sector. The findings indicate that while the tax considerably reduced emissions from ships, it also had a negative impact on exports and resulted in mixed impacts on GDP, exacerbating existing inequalities across regions. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering various economic and social variables in impact assessments to identify potential trade-offs and synergies between policy objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Paula Pereda & Andrea Lucchesi & Thais Diniz & Rayan Wolf, 2023. "Carbon Tax in the Shipping Sector: Assessing Economic and Environmental Impacts," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2023_04, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP), revised 17 Jun 2024.
  • Handle: RePEc:spa:wpaper:2023wpecon4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/VC_Pereda_Lucchesi_Diniz_Wolf_04WP.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghosh, Madanmohan & Luo, Deming & Rutherford, Thomas & Zhu, Yunfa, 2014. "The Drivers of GHG Emissions Intensity Improvements in Major Economies Analysis of Trends 1995-2009," Conference papers 332465, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. Cristea, Anca & Hummels, David & Puzzello, Laura & Avetisyan, Misak, 2013. "Trade and the greenhouse gas emissions from international freight transport," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 153-173.
    3. Cramton, Peter & Kerr, Suzi, 2002. "Tradeable carbon permit auctions: How and why to auction not grandfather," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 333-345, March.
    4. Paula C. Pereda & Andrea Lucchesi, 2022. "Alternative frameworks for cost-effectiveness analysis of environmental policies in maritime transport," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 24(3), pages 630-650, September.
    5. Narayan, Seema & Doytch, Nadia, 2017. "An investigation of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and economic growth nexus using industrial and residential energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 160-176.
    6. Liu, Jing & Arndt, Channing, 2004. "Parameter Estimation and Measures of Fit in A Global, General Equilibrium Model," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 19, pages 626-649.
    7. Aguiar, Angel & Corong, Erwin & van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique, 2020. "The GTAP Recursive Dynamic (GTAP-RD) Model: Version 1.0," Conference papers 333133, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    8. Sotiria Lagouvardou & Harilaos N. Psaraftis & Thalis Zis, 2020. "A Literature Survey on Market-Based Measures for the Decarbonization of Shipping," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-23, May.
    9. Behrens, Kristian & Hamilton, Jonathan H. & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2007. "Commodity tax harmonization and the location of industry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 271-291, July.
    10. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    11. Anastasia Christodoulou & Dimitrios Dalaklis & Aykut I. Ölçer & Peyman Ghaforian Masodzadeh, 2021. "Inclusion of Shipping in the EU-ETS: Assessing the Direct Costs for the Maritime Sector Using the MRV Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-20, June.
    12. Theo E. Notteboom * & Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2005. "Port regionalization: towards a new phase in port development," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 297-313, July.
    13. Hertel, Thomas, 1997. "Global Trade Analysis: Modeling and applications," GTAP Books, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, number 7685, December.
    14. Hertel, Thomas W. & Reimer, Jeffrey J. & Valenzuela, Ernesto, 2005. "Incorporating commodity stockholding into a general equilibrium model of the global economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 646-664, July.
    15. Richard Schmalensee & Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "Lessons Learned from Three Decades of Experience with Cap and Trade," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(1), pages 59-79.
    16. Dominioni,Goran & Heine,Dirk & Martinez Romera,Beatriz, 2018. "Regional carbon pricing for international maritime transport : challenges and opportunities for global geographical coverage," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8319, The World Bank.
    17. William Nordhaus, 2019. "Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 1991-2014, June.
    18. Harilaos N. Psaraftis & Christos A. Kontovas, 2020. "Decarbonization of Maritime Transport: Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    19. Alizadeh, Amir H. & Huang, Chih-Yueh & van Dellen, Stefan, 2015. "A regime switching approach for hedging tanker shipping freight rates," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 44-59.
    20. Harilaos N. Psaraftis, 2019. "Speed optimization versus speed reduction: Are speed limits better than a bunker levy?," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 21(4), pages 524-542, December.
    21. Mundaca, Gabriela & Strand, Jon & Young, Ian R., 2021. "Carbon pricing of international transport fuels: Impacts on carbon emissions and trade activity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    22. William Nordhaus, 2014. "Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon: Concepts and Results from the DICE-2013R Model and Alternative Approaches," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 000.
    23. Diniz Oliveira, Thais & Costa Gurgel, Angelo & Tonry, Steve, 2021. "Potential trading partners of a brazilian emissions trading scheme: The effects of linking with a developed region (Europe) and two developing regions (Latin America and China)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    24. Lee, Tsung-Chen & Chang, Young-Tae & Lee, Paul T.W., 2013. "Economy-wide impact analysis of a carbon tax on international container shipping," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 87-102.
    25. Jeffrey J. Reimer, 2007. "Assessing Global Computable General Equilibrium Model Validity Using Agricultural Price Volatility," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 89(2), pages 383-397.
    26. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Go, Delfin & Schiff, Maurice & Suthiwart-Narueput, Sethaput, 1996. "The whys and why nots of export taxation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1684, The World Bank.
    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. Jason Monios, 2023. "The Moral Limits of Market-Based Mechanisms: An Application to the International Maritime Sector," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(2), pages 283-299, October.
    2. Theodoros Syriopoulos & Efthymios Roumpis & Michael Tsatsaronis, 2023. "Hedging Strategies in Carbon Emission Price Dynamics: Implications for Shipping Markets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-27, September.
    3. Kym Anderson & Ernesto Valenzuela & Lee Ann Jackson, 2008. "Recent and Prospective Adoption of Genetically Modified Cotton: A Global Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Economic Impacts," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(2), pages 265-296, January.
    4. Martin Zapf & Hermann Pengg & Christian Weindl, 2019. "How to Comply with the Paris Agreement Temperature Goal: Global Carbon Pricing According to Carbon Budgets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-20, August.
    5. Christopher R. Knittel & Konstantinos Metaxoglou & Anson Soderbery & André Trindade, 2022. "Exporting global warming? Coal trade and the shale gas boom," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 1294-1333, August.
    6. Hertel, Thomas & Hummels, David & Ivanic, Maros & Keeney, Roman, 2007. "How confident can we be of CGE-based assessments of Free Trade Agreements?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 611-635, July.
    7. Gouriéroux, C. & Monfort, A. & Renne, J.-P., 2022. "Required Capital for Long-Run Risks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    8. Costinot, Arnaud & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2014. "Trade Theory with Numbers: Quantifying the Consequences of Globalization," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 197-261, Elsevier.
    9. Cariou, Pierre & Halim, Ronald A. & Rickard, Bradley J., 2023. "Ship-owner response to carbon taxes: Industry and environmental implications," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    10. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Ghaforian Masodzadeh, Peyman & Ölçer, Aykut I. & Ballini, Fabio & Christodoulou, Anastasia, 2022. "How to bridge the short-term measures to the Market Based Measure? Proposal of a new hybrid MBM based on a new standard in ship operation," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 123-142.
    12. Avetisyan, Misak, 2018. "Impacts of global carbon pricing on international trade, modal choice and emissions from international transport," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 532-548.
    13. Nelson B Villoria & Paul V Preckel, 2017. "Gaussian Quadratures vs. Monte Carlo Experiments for Systematic Sensitivity Analysis of Computable General Equilibrium Model Results," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 480-487.
    14. David L. Hummels & Georg Schaur, 2013. "Time as a Trade Barrier," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2935-2959, December.
    15. Volker Nitsch & Nikolaus Wolf, 2013. "Tear down this wall: on the persistence of borders in trade," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 154-179, February.
    16. Mario Holzner, 2004. "GSIM Measurement of the Costs of Protection in Southeast Europe," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 55, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    17. Harilaos N. Psaraftis & Christos A. Kontovas, 2020. "Decarbonization of Maritime Transport: Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Nelson Benjamin Villoria & Elliot Wamboka Mghenyi, 2017. "The Impacts of India's Food Security Policies on South Asian Wheat and Rice Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(3), pages 730-746.
    19. World Bank, 2009. "Strengthening Bolivian Competitiveness : Export Diversification and Inclusive Growth," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2656.
    20. Artavia, Marco & Grethe, Harald & Zimmermann, Georg, 2015. "Stochastic market modeling with Gaussian Quadratures: Do rotations of Stroud's octahedron matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 155-168.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carbon Pricing; Carbon Tax; Shipping; Computable General Equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy
    • F17 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Forecasting and Simulation
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    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:spa:wpaper:2023wpecon4. 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: Pedro Garcia Duarte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuspbr.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.