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Trade, environment, and income inequality: An optimal taxation approach

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  • Philippe Bontems
  • Estelle Gozlan

Abstract

In a small open economy, how should a government pursuing both environmental and redistributive objectives design domestic taxes when redistribution is costly? And how does trade liberalization affect the economy's levels of pollution and inequalities, when taxes are optimally and endogenously adjusted? Using a general equilibrium model under asymmetric information with two goods, two factors (skilled and unskilled labor), and pollution, this paper characterizes the optimal mixed tax system (nonlinear income tax and linear commodity and production taxes/subsidies) with both production and consumption externalities. While optimal income taxes are not directly affected by environmental externalities, conditions are derived under which under‐ or over‐internalization of social marginal damage is optimal for redistributive considerations. Assuming that redistribution operates in favor of the unskilled workers and that the dirty sector is intensive in unskilled labor, simulations suggest that trade liberalization involves a clear trade‐off between the reduction of inequalities and the control of pollution when the source of externality is only production; this is not necessarily true with a consumption externality. Finally, an increase in the willingness to redistribute income toward the unskilled results paradoxically in less pollution and more income inequalities.

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  • Philippe Bontems & Estelle Gozlan, 2018. "Trade, environment, and income inequality: An optimal taxation approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(4), pages 557-581, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:20:y:2018:i:4:p:557-581
    DOI: 10.1111/jpet.12288
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    3. Yasuhiro Takarada & Yasushi Kawabata & Akihiko Yanase & Hiroshi Kurata, 2020. "Standards policy and international trade: Multilateralism versus regionalism," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1420-1441, September.
    4. Yasushi Kawabata & Yasuhiro Takarada, 2023. "Greening Trade Agreements Through Harmonization of Environmental Regulations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 57-81, October.

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