Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Fiscal limits on first-best climate policy: A CGE analysis for Europe

Contents:

Author Info

  • Richard Tol

    () (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Stefano F Verde

    (Climate Policy Research Unit, European University Institute, Florence, Italy)

Abstract

We use a standard computable general equilibrium model to explore the fiscal implications of stringent carbon dioxide emission reduction in Europe. Both the immediate targets (20-30% by 2020) and the medium-term targets (80-90% by 2050) for abatement can be met with a carbon tax that is modest to sizeable. Imposing budget neutrality, a carbon tax that would allow all other taxes to fall by 5% (20%) would cut emissions by about 40% (80%). For 80% emission reduction, the carbon tax would only be the third largest tax in terms of revenue. A 40% emission reduction would cost about 1.5% of GDP. Costs are roughly exponential in abatement. The economic impact of emission reduction is minimized if the carbon tax revenue is preferentially used to reduce taxes on intermediates and import tariffs; such taxes, however, bring in little revenue at present. Emission reduction in Europe affects trade patterns across the world. It hampers the economies of West Asia and Africa, but has stimulating effect elsewhere. Economies everywhere outside Europe become more carbon-intensive. About one in four of emissions avoided in Europe are emitted elsewhere.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/documents/wps-58-2013.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Sussex in its series Working Paper Series with number 5813.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Feb 2013
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:5813

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Jubilee Building G08, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SL
Phone: +44 (0) 1273 678889
Fax: +44 (0)1273 873715
Email:
Web page: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: carbon tax; tax reform; greenhouse gas emission reduction;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. M. L. Weitzman, 1973. "Prices vs. Quantities," Working papers 106, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  2. McDougall, Robert, 2000. "A New Regional Household Demand System for GTAP," GTAP Working Papers 404, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:5813

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Russell Eke).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.