IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v55y2010i2p104-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simple Pigovian Taxes VS. Emission Fees to Control Negative Externalities: A Pedagogical Note

Author

Listed:
  • Robert S. Main

Abstract

Many economics texts introduce their analysis of negative externalities by examining a tax on the output of polluting firms, sometimes called a “simple Pigovian tax,†often pointing out that taxing pollution directly is superior to taxing output and proceeding to discuss an emission fee as an alternative. They do not show how and why an emission fee is more efficient than an output tax. This note presents a numerical example allowing comparison of the welfare effects of the two approaches, as well as showing why simply reducing the pollution intensity of polluters' output would be inferior to an emission fee.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert S. Main, 2010. "Simple Pigovian Taxes VS. Emission Fees to Control Negative Externalities: A Pedagogical Note," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 55(2), pages 104-110, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:55:y:2010:i:2:p:104-110
    DOI: 10.1177/056943451005500211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943451005500211
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943451005500211?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:sae:amerec:v:55:y:2010:i:2:p:104-110. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.