IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scandj/v114y2012i2p334-357.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pollution, Private Investment in Healthcare, and Environmental Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Pautrel

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate that, in a two‐period overlapping‐generations model, the relationship between environmental taxation and economic activity (output level and growth) has an inverted‐U shape when we take into account the detrimental impact of pollution on health and the individual decision of each working‐age agent to improve her health. We also demonstrate that the link between environmental tax and lifetime welfare also has an inverted‐U shape, and that a tighter environmental policy might enhance economic activity while reducing steady‐state lifetime welfare. Finally, we investigate the social optimum and the determinants of the optimal environmental tax.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Pautrel, 2012. "Pollution, Private Investment in Healthcare, and Environmental Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(2), pages 334-357, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:114:y:2012:i:2:p:334-357
    DOI: j.1467-9442.2012.01696.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9442.2012.01696.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/j.1467-9442.2012.01696.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mariani, Fabio & Pérez-Barahona, Agustín & Raffin, Natacha, 2010. "Life expectancy and the environment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 798-815, April.
    2. Agnani, Betty & Gutierrez, Maria-Jose & Iza, Amaia, 2005. "Growth in overlapping generation economies with non-renewable resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 387-407, September.
    3. Zhang, Xiaohui & Zhao, Xueyan & Harris, Anthony, 2009. "Chronic diseases and labour force participation in Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 91-108, January.
    4. Pautrel, Xavier, 2009. "Pollution and life expectancy: How environmental policy can promote growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 1040-1051, February.
    5. John, A & Pecchenino, R, 1994. "An Overlapping Generations Model of Growth and the Environment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1393-1410, November.
    6. X. Pautrel, 2008. "Reconsidering the Impact of the Environment on Long-run Growth when Pollution Influences Health and Agents have a Finite-lifetime," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(1), pages 37-52, May.
    7. Cropper, M L, 1981. "Measuring the Benefits from Reduced Morbidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 235-240, May.
    8. Heather L. Bednarek & Rowena A. Pecchenino & Sally C. Stearns, 2008. "Do Your Neighbors Influence Your Health?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(2), pages 301-315, April.
    9. Pierre-André Jouvet & Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2010. "Longevity and environmental quality in an OLG model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 191-216, July.
    10. Williams III, Roberton C., 2003. "Health effects and optimal environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 323-335, February.
    11. Mourmouras, Alex, 1991. " Competitive Equilibria and Sustainable Growth in a Life-Cycle Model with Natural Resources," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(4), pages 585-591.
    12. de la Croix,David & Michel,Philippe, 2002. "A Theory of Economic Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001151.
    13. Williams, Roberton III, 2002. "Environmental Tax Interactions when Pollution Affects Health or Productivity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 261-270, September.
    14. Rosa Aísa & Fernando Pueyo, 2004. "Endogenous longevity, health and economic growth: a slow growth for a longer life?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(3), pages 1-10.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3881 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Mourmouras, Alex, 1993. "Conservationist government policies and intergenerational equity in an overlapping generations model with renewable resources," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 249-268, June.
    17. John Mullahy & Stephanie A. Robert, 2008. "No Time to Lose? Time Constraints and Physical Activity," NBER Working Papers 14513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Brigitte Dormont & Michel Grignon & Hélène Huber, 2006. "Health expenditure growth: reassessing the threat of ageing," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 947-963, September.
    19. Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2005. "Economic growth and the environment," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1219-1271, Elsevier.
    20. Zon, A.H. van & Muysken, J., 1997. "Health, education and endogenous growth," Research Memorandum 006, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    21. K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Environmental Economics," Handbook of Environmental Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    22. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    23. Raymond Gradus & Sjak Smulders, 1993. "The trade-off between environmental care and long-term growth—Pollution in three prototype growth models," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 25-51, February.
    24. Murray C. Kemp & Ngo Van Long, 1979. "The Under‐Exploitation of Natural Resources: A Model with Overlapping Generations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 55(3), pages 214-221, September.
    25. Oueslati, Walid, 2002. "Environmental policy in an endogenous growth model with human capital and endogenous labor supply," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 487-507, May.
    26. Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2008. "Environmental Quality, Life Expectancy, and Sustainable Economic Growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 08/19, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    27. van Zon, Adriaan & Muysken, Joan, 2001. "Health and endogenous growth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 169-185, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Goenka, A. & Jafarey, S. & Pouliot, W., 2012. "Pollution, mortality and optimal environmental policy," Working Papers 12/07, Department of Economics, City University London.
    2. Fu, Min & Gu, Liqin & Zhen, Zaili & Sun, Mei & Tian, Lixin, 2020. "Optimal carbon tax income distribution and health welfare spillover effect based on health factors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    3. Essosinam Franck Karabou & Komlan Ametowoyo Adeve & Kossi Atsutsè Dziédzom Tsomdzo, 2021. "Dépenses publiques de santé, état de santé et croissance en Afrique Subsaharienne: Cas de l'Afrique de l'Est et de l'Ouest," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 33(2), pages 397-407, June.
    4. Karine Constant & Natacha Raffin, 2016. "Environnement, croissance et inégalités : le rôle particulier du canal de la santé," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(3), pages 9-29.
    5. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-00930936 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Fen Zhang & Tianyi Song & Xiang Cheng & Tianhao Li & Ziming Yang, 2022. "Transportation Infrastructure, Population Mobility, and Public Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-16, December.
    7. Wang, Min & Zhao, Jinhua & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2015. "Optimal health and environmental policies in a pollution-growth nexus," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 160-179.
    8. Vella, Eugenia & Dioikitopoulos, Evangelos V. & Kalyvitis, Sarantis, 2015. "Green Spending Reforms, Growth, And Welfare With Endogenous Subjective Discounting," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(6), pages 1240-1260, September.
    9. Xavier Pautrel, 2015. "Abatement Technology and the Environment–Growth Nexus with Education," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(3), pages 297-318, July.
    10. Mathieu-Bolh, Nathalie, 2017. "Can tax reforms help achieve sustainable development?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 135-163.
    11. Sang Won Yoon, 2016. "Is Current Trade Pattern Between the Developed and Developing Countries Environmentally Sustainable?," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(5), pages 138-150, May.
    12. Mathieu-Bolh, Nathalie & Pautrel, Xavier, 2016. "Reassessing the effects of environmental taxation when pollution affects health over the life-cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 310-321.
    13. Wei-Bin Zhang, 2015. "Oscillations in a Growth Model with Capital, Technology and Environment with Exogenous Shocks," Academicus International Scientific Journal, Entrepreneurship Training Center Albania, issue 12, pages 73-93, July.
    14. Shao, Shuai & Razzaq, Asif, 2022. "Does composite fiscal decentralization reduce trade-adjusted resource consumption through institutional governance, human capital, and infrastructure development?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Hamaguchi, Yoshihiro, 2023. "Environmental tax evasion as a determinant of the Porter and pollution haven hypotheses in a corrupt political system," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 610-633.
    16. Klarl, Torben, 2016. "Pollution externalities, endogenous health and the speed of convergence in an endogenous growth model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 98-113.
    17. Su-Mei Chen & Ling-Yun He, 2015. "Optimal environmental tax swaps and double dividend hypothesis," Papers 1512.01626, arXiv.org.
    18. Evangelos V. Dioikitopoulos & Sugata Ghosh & Eugenia Vella, 2016. "Technological Progress, Time Perception and Environmental Sustainability," Working Papers 2016002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    19. Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh & Xavier Pautrel, 2014. "Environmental taxation, health and the life-cycle," Working Papers hal-00990256, HAL.
    20. Lucas Bretschger & Alexandra Vinogradova, 2017. "Human Development at Risk: Economic Growth with Pollution-Induced Health Shocks," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 66(3), pages 481-495, March.

    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. Xavier Pautrel, 2009. "Health-enhancing activities and the environment:How competition for resources make the environmental policy beneficial," Working Papers hal-00423323, HAL.
    2. Aloi, Marta & Tournemaine, Frederic, 2011. "Growth effects of environmental policy when pollution affects health," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 1683-1695, July.
    3. Mathieu-Bolh, Nathalie & Pautrel, Xavier, 2016. "Reassessing the effects of environmental taxation when pollution affects health over the life-cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 310-321.
    4. Natacha Raffin & Thomas Seegmuller, 2017. "The Cost of Pollution on Longevity, Welfare and Economic Stability," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 683-704, November.
    5. Klarl, Torben, 2016. "Pollution externalities, endogenous health and the speed of convergence in an endogenous growth model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 98-113.
    6. Natacha Raffin, 2012. "Childrens environmental health, education, and economic development," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(3), pages 996-1022, August.
    7. Wang, Min & Zhao, Jinhua & Bhattacharya, Joydeep, 2015. "Optimal health and environmental policies in a pollution-growth nexus," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 160-179.
    8. Marta Aloi & Frederic Tournemaine, 2013. "Inequality, growth, and environmental quality tradeoffs in a model with human capital accumulation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(3), pages 1123-1155, August.
    9. Basseti, Thomas & Benos, Nikos & Karagiannis, Stelios, 2010. "How policy can influence human capital accumulation and environment quality," MPRA Paper 21754, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Fu, Min & Gu, Liqin & Zhen, Zaili & Sun, Mei & Tian, Lixin, 2020. "Optimal carbon tax income distribution and health welfare spillover effect based on health factors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    11. Evangelos V. Dioikitopoulos & Sugata Ghosh & Eugenia Vella, 2016. "Technological Progress, Time Perception and Environmental Sustainability," Working Papers 2016002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    12. Dugan, Anna & Prskawetz, Alexia & Raffin, Natacha, 2022. "The Environment, Life Expectancy and Growth in Overlapping Generations Models: A Survey," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 01/2022, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    13. Mouez Fodha & Thomas Seegmuller, 2014. "Environmental Quality, Public Debt and Economic Development," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 57(4), pages 487-504, April.
    14. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-00930936 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Karine Constant, 2015. "Environmental Policy and Inequality: A Matter of Life and Death," AMSE Working Papers 1527, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    16. Wang, Min, 2010. "Essays on Environment, Natural Resource, Growth and Development," ISU General Staff Papers 201001010800002824, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    17. Aditya Goenka & Saqib Jafarey & William Pouliot, 2012. "Pollution, Mortality and Optimal Environmental Policy," Discussion Papers 12-05, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    18. Chen Jhy-hwa & Shieh Jhy-yuan & Chang Juin-jen, 2015. "Environmental policy and economic growth: the macroeconomic implications of the health effect," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-31, January.
    19. Nathalie Mathieu-Bolh & Xavier Pautrel, 2014. "Environmental taxation, health and the life-cycle," Working Papers hal-00990256, HAL.
    20. Frederic Tournemaine & Christopher Tsoukis, 2018. "The Great Transition: Implications From Environmental Policy For The Quality–Quantity Trade-Off In Children-Rearing," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(05), pages 1155-1174, December.
    21. Andreas Schaefer, 2016. "Survival to Adulthood and the Growth Drag of Pollution," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 16/241, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    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:bla:scandj:v:114:y:2012:i:2:p:334-357. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9442 .

    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.