IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eth/wpswif/11-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Optimum commodity taxation theory asks how to raise a given amount of tax revenue while minimizing distortions. We reexamine Ramsey’s inverse elasticity rule in presence of Hotelling-type non-renewable natural resources. Under standard assumptions borrowed from the non-renewable-resource-extraction and from the optimum-commodity-taxation literatures, a non-renewable resource should be taxed in priority whatever its demand elasticity and whatever the demand elasticity of regular commodities. It should also be taxed at a higher rate than other commodities having the same demand elasticity and, while the tax on regular commodities should be constant, the resource tax should vary over time. There are two basic ways to alleviate resource supply limitations; one is to produce reserves for subsequent extraction; the other one is to rely on imports. When the generation of reserves by exploration is determined by the net-of-tax rents derived during the extraction phase, reserves become a conventional form of capital and royalties tax its income; our results contradict Chamley’s conclusion that capital should not be taxed at all in the very long run. When the economy is autarkic, in the absence of any subsidy to reserve discoveries, the optimal tax rate on extraction obeys an inverse elasticity rule almost identical to that of a commodity whose supply is perfectly elastic. As a matter of fact, there is a continuum of optimal combinations of reserve subsidies and extraction taxes, irrespective of whether taxes are applied on consumption or on production. When the government cannot commit, extraction rents are completely expropriated and subsidies are maximum. In general the optimum Ramsey tax not only causes a distortion of the extraction path, as happens when reserves are given, but also distorts the level of reserves developed for extraction. When that distortion is the sole effect of the tax, it is determined by a rule reminiscent of the inverse elasticity rule applying to elastically-supplied commodities. In an open economy, Ramsey taxes further acquire an optimum-tariff dimension, capturing foreign resource rents. For countries that import the resource, the result that domestic resource consumption is to be taxed at a higher rate than conventional commodities having the same demand elasticity emerges reinforced.

Suggested Citation

  • Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2011. "Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 11/151, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
  • Handle: RePEc:eth:wpswif:11-151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cer.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/cer-eth/cer-eth-dam/documents/working-papers/WP-11-151.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaplow, Louis, 2006. "On the undesirability of commodity taxation even when income taxation is not optimal," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1235-1250, August.
    2. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2003. "Capital income taxation when inherited wealth is not observable," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2475-2490, October.
    3. Belan, Pascal & Gauthier, Stéphane & Laroque, Guy, 2008. "Optimal grouping of commodities for indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1738-1750, July.
    4. A. Lans Bovenberg & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2002. "Environmental Policy, Public Finance and the Labour Market in a Second-Best World," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 6, pages 112-153, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Fischer, Carolyn & Laxminarayan, Ramanan, 2005. "Sequential development and exploitation of an exhaustible resource: do monopoly rights promote conservation?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 500-515, May.
    6. Saez, Emmanuel, 2004. "Direct or indirect tax instruments for redistribution: short-run versus long-run," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 503-518, March.
    7. Gaudet, Gerard & Lasserre, Pierre, 1986. "Capital income taxation, depletion allowances, and nonrenewable resource extraction," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 241-253, March.
    8. Naito, Hisahiro, 1999. "Re-examination of uniform commodity taxes under a non-linear income tax system and its implication for production efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 165-188, February.
    9. Slade, Margaret E., 1988. "Grade selection under uncertainty: Least cost last and other anomalies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 189-205, June.
    10. Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Pestieau, Pierre, 1994. "Towards a theory of the direct-indirect tax mix," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 71-88, September.
    11. Robin Boadway & Frank Flatters, 2023. "The Taxation of Natural Resources: Principles and Policy Issues," Springer Books, in: Anwar Shah (ed.), Taxing Choices for Managing Natural Resources, the Environment, and Global Climate Change, chapter 0, pages 17-81, Springer.
    12. Gérard Gaudet, 2007. "Natural resource economics under the rule of Hotelling," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1033-1059, November.
    13. Pierre Lasserre, 1985. "Discovery Costs as a Measure of Rent," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 18(3), pages 474-483, August.
    14. DAUBANES, Julien & LASSERRE, Pierre, 2011. "Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource," Cahiers de recherche 03-2011, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    15. Pindyck, Robert S, 1978. "The Optimal Exploration and Production of Nonrenewable Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 841-861, October.
    16. Sören Blomquist & Vidar Christiansen, 2008. "Taxation and Heterogeneous Preferences," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 64(2), pages 218-244, June.
    17. Baumol, William J & Bradford, David F, 1970. "Optimal Departures from Marginal Cost Pricing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 265-283, June.
    18. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    19. Robin Boadway & Michael Keen, 2014. "Rent Taxes and Royalties in Designing Fiscal Regimes for Non-Renewable Resources," CESifo Working Paper Series 4568, CESifo.
    20. Bergstrom, Theodore C, 1982. "On Capturing Oil Rents with a National Excise Tax," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 194-201, March.
    21. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    22. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    23. Cairns, Robert D, 1990. "The Economics of Exploration for Non-renewable Resources," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(4), pages 361-395.
    24. Lutz Kilian & Daniel P. Murphy, 2014. "The Role Of Inventories And Speculative Trading In The Global Market For Crude Oil," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 454-478, April.
    25. Lewis, Tracy R & Matthews, Steven A & Burness, H Stuart, 1979. "Monopoly and the Rate of Extraction of Exhaustible Resources: Note," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 227-230, March.
    26. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2001. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: The Design of the Tax Structure Revisted," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(3), pages 781-799, August.
    27. Carlos de Miguel & Baltasar Manzano, 2006. "Optimal Oil Taxation in a Small Open Economy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(3), pages 438-454, July.
    28. Krichene, Noureddine, 2002. "World crude oil and natural gas: a demand and supply model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 557-576, November.
    29. Gaudet, Gerard & Lasserre, Pierre, 1988. "On comparing monopoly and competition in exhaustible resource exploitation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 412-418, December.
    30. Robert S. Pindyck, 1979. "The Structure of World Energy Demand," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661772, December.
    31. Christiansen, Vidar, 1984. "Which commodity taxes should supplement the income tax?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 195-220, July.
    32. Partha Dasgupta & Joseph Stiglitz, 1972. "On Optimal Taxation and Public Production," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 87-103.
    33. Konishi, Hideo, 1995. "A Pareto-improving commodity tax reform under a smooth nonlinear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 413-446, March.
    34. Boadway, R. & Maital, S. & Prachowny, M., 1973. "Optimal tariffs, optimal taxes and public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 391-403.
    35. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1990. "Supply-Side Economics: An Analytical Review," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 293-316, April.
    36. Petrucci, Alberto, 2010. "Second-Best Optimal Taxation of Oil and Capital in a Small Open Economy," Institutions and Markets Papers 59477, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    37. Sandmo, Agnar, 1976. "Optimal taxation : An introduction to the literature," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 37-54.
    38. Burness, H. Stuart, 1976. "On the taxation of nonreplenishable natural resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 289-311, December.
    39. Partha Dasgupta & Geoffrey Heal & Joseph E. Stiflitx, 1980. "The Taxation of Exhaustible Resources," NBER Working Papers 0436, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Robin Boadway & Michael Keen, 2009. "Theoretical Perspectives On Resource Tax Design," Working Paper 1206, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    41. Alberto Petrucci, 2010. "Second-Best Optimal Taxation of Oil and Capital in a Small Open Economy," Working Papers 2010.20, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    42. Berndt, Ernst R & Wood, David O, 1975. "Technology, Prices, and the Derived Demand for Energy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(3), pages 259-268, August.
    43. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1976. "Monopoly and the Rate of Extraction of Exhaustible Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 655-661, September.
    44. Mirrlees, J. A., 1976. "Optimal tax theory : A synthesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 327-358, November.
    45. Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The desirability of commodity taxation under non-linear income taxation and heterogeneous tastes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 217-230, February.
    46. Cremer, Helmuth & Gahvari, Firouz, 1995. "Uncertainty and optimal taxation: In defense of commodity taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 291-310, February.
    47. Conrad, Robert F. & Hool, Bryce, 1981. "Resource taxation with heterogeneous quality and endogenous reserves," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 17-33, August.
    48. Ross Garnaut, 2010. "Principles and Practice of Resource Rent Taxation," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 43(4), pages 347-356, December.
    49. Quyen, N V, 1988. "The Optimal Depletion and Exploration of a Nonrenewable Resource," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1467-1471, November.
    50. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1971. "Optimal Commodity and Trade Taxes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 1360-1368, Nov.-Dec..
    51. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 1985. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    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. Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2011. "Optimum Commodity Taxation with a Non-Renewable Resource," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 11/151, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    2. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2018. "Political economy of dynamic resource wars," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 765-782.
    3. Jaakkola, Niko & Spiro, Daniel & van Benthem, Arthur A., 2019. "Finders, keepers?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 17-33.
    4. Robin Boadway & Michael Keen, 2014. "Rent Taxes and Royalties in Designing Fiscal Regimes for Non-Renewable Resources," CESifo Working Paper Series 4568, CESifo.
    5. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2017. "Rapacious Oil Exploration in face of Regime Switches: Breakthrough Renewable Energy and Dynamic Resource Wars," Development Working Papers 415, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    6. Naef, Alain, 2024. "The impossible love of fossil fuel companies for carbon taxes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    7. Karolina Ryszka, 2013. "Resource Extraction in a Political Economy Framework," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 13-094/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Julien Daubanes & Lisa Leinert, 2012. "Optimum Tariffs and Exhaustible Resources: Theory and Evidence for Gasoline," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 12/163, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    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. Fleurbaey, Marc, 2006. "Is commodity taxation unfair?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1765-1787, November.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2018. "Pareto efficient taxation and expenditures: Pre- and re-distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 101-119.
    3. Belan, Pascal & Gauthier, Stéphane & Laroque, Guy, 2008. "Optimal grouping of commodities for indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1738-1750, July.
    4. Andrade de Sá, Saraly & Daubanes, Julien, 2016. "Limit pricing and the (in)effectiveness of the carbon tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 28-39.
    5. Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2023. "The Case for Uniform Commodity Taxation: A Tax Reform Approach," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 244(1), pages 79-109, March.
    6. George R. Zodrow, 2019. "Should Capital Income Be Subject to Consumption-Based Taxation?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 5, pages 131-168, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Spencer Bastani & Sebastian Koehne, 2022. "How Should Consumption Be Taxed?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10038, CESifo.
    8. Kaplow, Louis, 2006. "On the undesirability of commodity taxation even when income taxation is not optimal," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1235-1250, August.
    9. Julien Daubanes & Pierre Lasserre, 2019. "The supply of non-renewable resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1084-1111, August.
    10. Eddy Zanoutene, 2023. "Scale‐dependent and risky returns to savings: Consequences for optimal capital taxation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(3), pages 532-569, June.
    11. Boadway, Robin & Song, Zhen, 2016. "Indirect taxes for redistribution: Should necessity goods be favored?," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 64-88.
    12. Cui, Xiaoyong & Gong, Liutang & Li, Wenjian, 2021. "Supply-side optimal capital taxation with endogenous wage inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. By Louis Kaplow, 2012. "Optimal Control Of Externalities In The Presence Of Income Taxation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 487-509, May.
    14. Johannes Pfeiffer, 2017. "Fossil Resources and Climate Change – The Green Paradox and Resource Market Power Revisited in General Equilibrium," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 77.
    15. Lu, Chun-Hui & Ueng, K.L. Glen & Chang, Juin-Jen, 2022. "Consumption indivisibility and the optimal tax mix," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    16. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2015. "In Praise of Frank Ramsey's Contribution to the Theory of Taxation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 235-268, March.
    17. Odd E. Nygård & John T. Revesz, 2015. "Optimal indirect taxation and the uniformity debate: A review of theoretical results and empirical contributions," Discussion Papers 809, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    18. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Optimal Control of Externalities in the Presence of Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 12339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Kaplow, Louis, 2010. "Optimal control of externalities in the presence of income taxation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58172, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. John T. Revesz, 2014. "A Numerical Model of Optimal Differentiated Indirect Taxation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 211(4), pages 9-66, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimum commodity taxation; Inverse elasticity rule; Non-renewable resources; Hotelling resource; Supply elasticity; Demand elasticity; Capital income taxation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q31 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q38 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy (includes OPEC Policy)
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eth:wpswif:11-151. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwethch.html .

    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.