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Carbon Tax Burdens on Low-Income Households: A Reason for Delaying Climate Policy?

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  • Ian Parry

Abstract

This paper discusses techniques for measuring the incidence of carbon taxes across different household income groups and provides some cross-country estimates of these effects for selected advanced countries. The general message of this paper is that distributional concerns should not necessarily hold up carbon pricing. Energy price impacts may be less regressive than often supposed and there are ample opportunities in advanced countries for adjusting tax and benefit schedules to alter the overall incidence of a carbon tax reform. Insofar as possible however, using carbon tax revenues in ways that enhance economic efficiency is critical for containing overall costs to the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian Parry, 2015. "Carbon Tax Burdens on Low-Income Households: A Reason for Delaying Climate Policy?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5482, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5482
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    Cited by:

    1. Teixidó, Jordi J. & Verde, Stefano F., 2017. "Is the Gasoline Tax Regressive in the Twenty-First Century? Taking Wealth into Account," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 109-125.
    2. Nils Ohlendorf & Michael Jakob & Jan Christoph Minx & Carsten Schröder & Jan Christoph Steckel, 2021. "Distributional Impacts of Carbon Pricing: A Meta-Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(1), pages 1-42, January.
    3. Lucas Bretschger & Karen Pittel, 2020. "Twenty Key Challenges in Environmental and Resource Economics," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(4), pages 725-750, December.
    4. Hänsel, Martin C. & Franks, Max & Kalkuhl, Matthias & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2022. "Optimal carbon taxation and horizontal equity: A welfare-theoretic approach with application to German household data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Julie Anne Cronin & Don Fullerton & Steven Sexton, 2019. "Vertical and Horizontal Redistributions from a Carbon Tax and Rebate," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(S1), pages 169-208.
    6. Lucas Bretschger & Karen Pittel, 2019. "Twenty Key Questions in Environmental and Resource Economics," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 19/328, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    7. Nils Ohlendorf & Michael Jakob & Jan Christoph Minx & Carsten Schröder & Jan Christoph Steckel, 2018. "Distributional Impacts of Climate Mitigation Policies - a Meta-Analysis," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1776, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Leif Jacobs & Lara Quack & Mario Mechtel, 2021. "Distributional Effects of Carbon Pricing by Transport Fuel Taxation," Working Paper Series in Economics 405, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    9. Wang, Qian & Hubacek, Klaus & Feng, Kuishuang & Guo, Lin & Zhang, Kun & Xue, Jinjun & Liang, Qiao-Mei, 2019. "Distributional impact of carbon pricing in Chinese provinces," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 327-340.
    10. Wang, Qian & Hubacek, Klaus & Feng, Kuishuang & Wei, Yi-Ming & Liang, Qiao-Mei, 2016. "Distributional effects of carbon taxation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1123-1131.
    11. Runst, Petrik & Thonipara, Anita, 2019. "Dosis facit effectum: Why the scope of the carbon tax matters - Evidence from the Swedish residential sector," ifh Working Papers 19/2019, Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    carbon tax; distributional incidence; fiscal reform; climate change; revenue recycling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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