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Should Green Governments Give Priority to Environmental Policies over Growth-Enhancing Policies?

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  • George Economides
  • Apostolis Philippopoulos

Abstract

This paper studies the properties of second-best optimal policy in a standard general equilibrium model of growth augmented with renewable natural resources. The government chooses its policy instruments (the income tax rate and the allocation of collected tax revenues between public investment and environmental policy) to solve a Ramsey-type policy problem. The main result is that, the more the citizens care about the environment, the more growth-enhancing policies the government finds it optimal to choose in the long run. This is because when citizens care about the environment, this requires tax revenues for environmental policy and can be only achieved by large tax bases and high growth. Thus, only growing economies can afford to care about the environment. This is the case even if pollution occurs as a by-product of output produced.

Suggested Citation

  • George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2005. "Should Green Governments Give Priority to Environmental Policies over Growth-Enhancing Policies?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1433, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1433
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    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1433.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Bovenberg, A Lans & Smulders, Sjak A, 1996. "Transitional Impacts of Environmental Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(4), pages 861-893, November.
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    4. Bovenberg, A.L. & Smulders, J.A., 1993. "Environmental quality and pollution-saving technological change in a two-sector endogenous growth model," Other publications TiSEM 69a2d188-baed-4083-b8bb-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
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    Cited by:

    1. Aditya Goenka & Saqib Jafarey & William Pouliot, 2012. "Pollution, Mortality and Optimal Environmental Policy," Discussion Papers 12-05, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    2. Gonzales-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2004. "Sustaining Social Security," Seminar Papers 731, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.

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    Keywords

    second-best policy; natural resources; economic growth;
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