IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/1999v20-01-a03.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Economy of Motor-Fuel Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Rajeev K. Goel
  • Michael A. Nelson

Abstract

This paper examines the political and economic underpinnings of gasoline tax policy. The theoretical model extends the earlier work of Hettich and Winer (1988) to flush out the effect of a change in the pre-tax price of a taxable activity on the politically optimal tax rate. Using a large cross-sectional sample of U.S. states over 1960-94, the empirical model tests the predictions of the theoretical model within the context of the state tax policy on gasoline. While simultaneously controlling for other politico-economic influences, we find that the influence of changes in gas prices on tax rates is negative. To our knowledge, this is the first study to include a fully developed theoretical model and its empirical application to the gasoline market for a test of the votemaximizing model of tax policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajeev K. Goel & Michael A. Nelson, 1999. "The Political Economy of Motor-Fuel Taxation," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 43-59.
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:1999v20-01-a03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=1301
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Epstein, Lucas & Muehlegger, Erich, 2024. "Ideology, Incidence and the Political Economy of Fuel Taxes: Evidence from California 2018 Proposition 6," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt6k58771s, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    2. Kossov, Vladimir & Kossova, Elena, 2013. "Gasoline price as social phenomenon," MPRA Paper 48720, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Fredriksson, Per G. & Millimet, D.L.Daniel L., 2004. "Comparative politics and environmental taxation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 705-722, July.
    4. Portney, Paul R. & Parry, Ian W.H. & Gruenspecht, Howard K. & Harrington, Winston, 2003. "The Economics of Fuel Economy Standards," Discussion Papers 10863, Resources for the Future.
    5. Shanjun Li & Joshua Linn & Erich Muehlegger, 2014. "Gasoline Taxes and Consumer Behavior," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 302-342, November.
    6. Button, Kenneth, 2020. "The Transition From Pigou’S Ideas On Road Pricing To Their Application," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 417-438, September.
    7. Scott, K. Rebecca, 2012. "Rational habits in gasoline demand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1713-1723.
    8. Flores, José Luis, 2014. "Políticas climáticas en países desarrollados: impacto en América Latina," Documentos de Proyectos 37611, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    9. Julien Daubanes & Lisa Leinert, 2012. "Optimum Tariffs and Exhaustible Resources: Theory and Evidence for Gasoline," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 12/163, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    10. Claudio A. , Agostini & Johanna, Jiménez, 2012. "La incidencia distributiva del impuesto a las gasolinas en Chile," Estudios Públicos, Centro de Estudios Públicos, vol. 0(126), pages 53-85.
    11. Paul R. Portney & Ian W.H. Parry & Howard K. Gruenspecht & Winston Harrington, 2003. "Policy Watch: The Economics of Fuel Economy Standards," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 203-217, Fall.
    12. Agostini, Claudio A. & Jiménez, Johanna, 2015. "The distributional incidence of the gasoline tax in Chile," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 243-252.
    13. Claudio A., Agostini & Johanna, Jiménez, 2012. "La incidencia distributiva del impuesto a las gasolinas en Chile," Estudios Públicos, Centro de Estudios Públicos, vol. 0(125), pages 53-85.
    14. Hasan Bülent KANTARCI, 2018. "Türkiye’de Akaryakıt Üzerinden Alınan Vergilerin OECD ve AB Ülkeleri ile Karşılaştırılması," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 26(35).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    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:aen:journl:1999v20-01-a03. 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: David Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.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.