IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/enreec/v58y2014i1p91-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why has Europe Become Environmentally Cleaner? Decomposing the Roles of Fiscal, Trade and Environmental Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Ramón López

    ()

  • Amparo Palacios

    ()

Abstract

This paper examines the role of fiscal policy, trade and energy taxes on environmental quality in Europe using disaggregated data at the monitoring station level for the 12 richest European countries spanning the period from 1995 to 2008. Our estimations show that fiscal policies and energy taxes are important determinants of pollution through various mechanisms. We find that increasing the share of fiscal spending in GDP and shifting the emphasis towards spending in public goods and against non-social subsidies significantly lower the concentrations of sulfur dioxide and ozone but not nitrogen dioxide. At the same time, energy taxes reduce nitrogen dioxide concentrations but have no effect on ozone and sulfur dioxide. Finally trade openness has a direct effect on sulfur dioxide but no effect on nitrogen dioxide or ozone. Our estimates account for time-varying unobserved heterogeneity. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Ramón López & Amparo Palacios, 2014. "Why has Europe Become Environmentally Cleaner? Decomposing the Roles of Fiscal, Trade and Environmental Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(1), pages 91-108, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:58:y:2014:i:1:p:91-108
    DOI: 10.1007/s10640-013-9692-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10640-013-9692-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adeyemi, Olutomi I. & Hunt, Lester C., 2007. "Modelling OECD industrial energy demand: Asymmetric price responses and energy-saving technical change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 693-709, July.
    2. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-346, April.
    3. López, Ramón & Galinato, Gregmar I. & Islam, Asif, 2011. "Fiscal spending and the environment: Theory and empirics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 180-198, September.
    4. Fleisher, Belton & Li, Haizheng & Zhao, Min Qiang, 2010. "Human capital, economic growth, and regional inequality in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 215-231, July.
    5. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    6. Kaplow, Louis, 2006. "Public goods and the distribution of income," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1627-1660, October.
    7. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    8. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    9. Louis S. Jacobson & Robert J. LaLonde & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1993. "Long-term earnings losses of high-seniority displaced workers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Nov, pages 2-20.
    10. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir & Barbara Sianesi, 1999. "Human capital investment: the returns from education and training to the individual, the firm and the economy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March.
    11. Don Fullerton & Garth Heutel, 2010. "The General Equilibrium Incidence of Environmental Mandates," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 64-89, August.
    12. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    13. Fullerton, Don & Heutel, Garth, 2007. "The general equilibrium incidence of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(3-4), pages 571-591, April.
    14. Orazio P. Attanasio & Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Ekaterini Kyriazidou, 2008. "Credit Constraints In The Market For Consumer Durables: Evidence From Micro Data On Car Loans," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 401-436, May.
    15. Afonso, António & Furceri, Davide, 2010. "Government size, composition, volatility and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 517-532, December.
    16. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    17. Trishita Ray Barman & Manash Ranjan Gupta, 2010. "Public Expenditure, Environment, and Economic Growth," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(6), pages 1109-1134, December.
    18. Lopez, Ramon & Galinato, Gregmar I., 2007. "Should governments stop subsidies to private goods? Evidence from rural Latin America," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 1071-1094, June.
    19. Christopher Decker & Mark Wohar, 2007. "Determinants of state diesel fuel excise tax rates: the political economy of fuel taxation in the United States," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 41(1), pages 171-188, March.
    20. William T. Harbaugh & Arik Levinson & David Molloy Wilson, 2002. "Reexamining The Empirical Evidence For An Environmental Kuznets Curve," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 541-551, August.
    21. Gupta, Manash Ranjan & Barman, Trishita Ray, 2009. "Fiscal policies, environmental pollution and economic growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1018-1028, September.
    22. Arrow, Kenneth & Bolin, Bert & Costanza, Robert & Dasgupta, Partha & Folke, Carl & Holling, C.S. & Jansson, Bengt-Owe & Levin, Simon & Mäler, Karl-Göran & Perrings, Charles & Pimentel, David, 1996. "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(01), pages 104-110, February.
    23. Leora Friedberg, 1998. "Did Unilateral Divorce Raise Divorce Rates? Evidence from Panel Data," NBER Working Papers 6398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Werner Antweiler & Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2001. "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 877-908, September.
    25. repec:eid:wpaper:02/10 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    27. Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1802-1820, December.
    28. Baranzini, Andrea & Goldemberg, Jose & Speck, Stefan, 2000. "A future for carbon taxes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 395-412, March.
    29. Bruce Morley, 2012. "Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of environmental taxes," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(18), pages 1817-1820, December.
    30. Fiorito, Riccardo & Kollintzas, Tryphon, 2004. "Public goods, merit goods, and the relation between private and government consumption," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1367-1398, December.
    31. Katrin Millock & Céline Nauges, 2006. "Ex Post Evaluation of an Earmarked Tax on Air Pollution," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(1), pages 68-84.
    32. Charles Grant, 2007. "Estimating credit constraints among US households," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(4), pages 583-605, October.
    33. Cornwell, Christopher & Schmidt, Peter & Sickles, Robin C., 1990. "Production frontiers with cross-sectional and time-series variation in efficiency levels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 185-200.
    34. Dasgupta, Partha, 1996. "The economics of the environment," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(04), pages 387-428, October.
    35. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    36. Deacon, Robert & Norman, Catherine S, 2004. "Is the environmental Kuznets curve an empirical regularity?," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt2m44f7kr, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    37. Peter Kennedy, 2003. "A Guide to Econometrics, 5th Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 5, volume 1, number 026261183x, January.
    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. Halkos, George & Paizanos, Epameinondas, 2015. "Effects of Macroeconomic Policy on Air Quality: Evidence from the US," MPRA Paper 62001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. 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.
    3. Ramon Lopez & Vinod Thomas & Pablo Troncoso, 2016. "Economic growth, natural disasters and climate change: New empirical estimates," Working Papers wp434, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    4. Halkos, George E. & Paizanos, Epameinondas Α., 2016. "The effects of fiscal policy on CO2 emissions: Evidence from the U.S.A," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 317-328.
    5. Galinato, Gregmar I. & Galinato, Suzette P., 2016. "The effects of government spending on deforestation due to agricultural land expansion and CO2 related emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 43-53.
    6. Ramón E. López & Vinod Thomas & Pablo Troncoso, 2015. "Climate Change and Natural Disasters," Working Papers wp414, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    7. Ionel Bostan & Mihaela Onofrei & Elena-Doina Dascalu & Bogdan Fîrtescu, 2016. "Impact of Sustainable Environmental Expenditures Policy on Air Pollution Reduction, During European Integration Framework," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 18(42), pages 286-286, May.
    8. Lu, Hongyou & Xu, Wenli & Xu, Kun, 2016. "How to Make The Fiscal policies Greener in China?——Based on The Perspective of Environmental Macroeconomics," MPRA Paper 70221, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government spending; Spending on public goods; Pollution; Taxes; H50; H40; O13; O44; Q53;

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling

    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:kap:enreec:v:58:y:2014:i:1:p:91-108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sonal Shukla) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.