IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/idb-wp-443.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Environmental Taxes Affected by Legislatures` Ideological Positions?

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Miller
  • Mauricio Vela

Abstract

Environmental taxes have been discussed as one of the main mechanisms to deal with environmental problems. Nonetheless, instruments of this type have rarely been implemented, and the adoption of new or higher environmental taxes has faced resistance in some countries. The purpose of this work is to identify one possible political answer to why adoption of environmental taxes varies. One explanation is that legislatures’ ideological position affects the degree of usage of taxes generally and environmental taxes in particular. For example, right-wing parties tend to be less associated with environmental concerns and more associated with lower government intervention. This paper presents evidence that reflects this relationship, showing the positive association of more left-wing legislatures with higher levels of environmental taxation. A panel of data for 37 developed and developing countries over 16 years is used considering the percentage of total revenue from environmentally related taxes, the ratio of this revenue to total energy use and tax levels in industry and household sectors. The results show that most of these impacts involve environmentally related taxes in the industry sector. Proportional representation electoral systems and high seat concentration by few parties appear to be necessary conditions for the negative relation of right-wing ideology with environmental taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Miller & Mauricio Vela, 2013. "Are Environmental Taxes Affected by Legislatures` Ideological Positions?," Research Department Publications IDB-WP-443, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=38084047
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lamla, Michael J., 2009. "Long-run determinants of pollution: A robustness analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 135-144, November.
    2. Torsten Persson & Gerard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Comparative Politics and Public Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1121-1161, December.
    3. John A. List & Daniel M. Sturm, 2006. "How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(4), pages 1249-1281.
    4. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    5. Scruggs, Lyle A., 1998. "Political and economic inequality and the environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 259-275, September.
    6. Neumayer, Eric, 2003. "Are left-wing party strength and corporatism good for the environment? Evidence from panel analysis of air pollution in OECD countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 203-220, June.
    7. Martin Gassebner & Michael J. Lamla & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2011. "Determinants of pollution: what do we really know?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 568-595, July.
    8. Christoffer Green-Pedersen, 2007. "The Growing Importance of Issue Competition: The Changing Nature of Party Competition in Western Europe," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 55, pages 607-628, October.
    9. James P. Allan & Lyle Scruggs, 2004. "Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 496-512, July.
    10. Neumayer, Eric, 2004. "The environment, left-wing political orientation and ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3-4), pages 167-175, December.
    11. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661926, December.
    12. Bernauer, Thomas & Koubi, Vally, 2009. "Effects of political institutions on air quality," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1355-1365, March.
    13. Per Fredriksson & Jim Wollscheid, 2007. "Democratic institutions versus autocratic regimes: The case of environmental policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 381-393, March.
    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. Kammerlander, Andreas & Schulze, Günther G., 2020. "Are Democracies Cleaner?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2017. "Trade and Environmental Quality in African Countries: Do Institutions Matter?," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(1), pages 155-172, January.
    3. Botetzagias, Iosif & Tsagkari, Marouko & Malesios, Chrisovaladis, 2018. "Is the ‘Troika’ Bad for the Environment? An Analysis of EU Countries' Environmental Performance in Times of Economic Downturn and Austerity Memoranda," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 34-51.
    4. Wen, Jun & Hao, Yu & Feng, Gen-Fu & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2016. "Does government ideology influence environmental performance? Evidence based on a new dataset," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 232-246.
    5. Chang, Chun-Ping & Wen, Jun & Dong, Minyi & Hao, Yu, 2018. "Does government ideology affect environmental pollutions? New evidence from instrumental variable quantile regression estimations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 386-400.
    6. Kauder, Björn & Potrafke, Niklas & Ursprung, Heinrich, 2018. "Behavioral determinants of proclaimed support for environment protection policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 26-41.
    7. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2005. "Democracy Deficits, Inequality and Pollution. A Politico-Economic Analysis," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-323, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    8. Haiqing Hu & Di Chen & Chun‐Ping Chang & Yin Chu, 2021. "The Political Economy Of Environmental Consequences: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 250-306, February.
    9. Dong-Hyeon Kim & Yi-Chen Wu & Shu-Chin Lin, 2022. "Carbon dioxide emissions, financial development and political institutions," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 837-874, May.
    10. Nicolae Stef & Sami Ben Jabeur, 2023. "Elections and Environmental Quality," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(2), pages 593-625, February.
    11. Tadadjeu, Sosson & Njangang, Henri & Woldemichael, Andinet, 2023. "Are resource-rich countries less responsive to global warming? Oil wealth and climate change policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    12. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2006. "On the Link Between Democracy and Environment," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-355, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    13. Garmann, Sebastian, 2014. "Do government ideology and fragmentation matter for reducing CO2-emissions? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-10.
    14. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    15. Li-Chen Chou & Wan-Hao Zhang & Meng-Ying Wang & Fu-Ming Yang, 2020. "The influence of democracy on emissions and energy efficiency in America: New evidence from quantile regression analysis," Energy & Environment, , vol. 31(8), pages 1318-1334, December.
    16. Fankhauser, Sam & Gennaioli, Caterina & Collins, Murray, 2015. "The political economy of passing climate change legislation: evidence from a survey," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63352, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Astghik Mavisakalyan & Vladimir Otrachshenko & Olga Popova, 2023. "Does democracy protect the environment? The role of the Arctic Council," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(5), pages 1-21, May.
    18. Fredriksson, Per G. & Neumayer, Eric, 2013. "Democracy and climate change policies: Is history important?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 11-19.
    19. Mignamissi, Dieudonné, 2020. "Pollution emission and institutions nexus in Africa," MPRA Paper 99017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. George Marbuah & Ing-Marie Gren, 2015. "Carbon Emissions and Social Capital in Sweden," Working Papers 2015.14, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    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:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-443. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.