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Household heterogeneity, aggregation, and the distributional impacts of environmental taxes

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  • Sebastian Rausch

    (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Giacomo Schwarz

    (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract

This paper examines how the general equilibrium incidence of an environmental tax depends on the effect of different incomes and preferences of heterogeneous households on aggregate outcomes. We develop a Harberger-type model with general forms of preferences and substitution between capital, labor, and pollution in production that captures the impact of household heterogeneity and interactions with production characteristics on the general equilibrium. We theoretically show that failing to incorporate household heterogeneity can qualitatively a ect incidence. We quantitatively illustrate that this aggregation bias can be important for assessing the incidence of a carbon tax, mainly by a ecting the returns to factors of production. Our findings are robust to a number of extensions including alternative revenue recycling schemes, preexisting taxes, non-separable utility in pollution, labor-leisure choice, and multiple commodities.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Rausch & Giacomo Schwarz, 2016. "Household heterogeneity, aggregation, and the distributional impacts of environmental taxes," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 16/230, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:eth:wpswif:16-230
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects

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