IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/6606.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Firm Heterogeneity Impact the Effectiveness of Carbon Taxes? Experiments in Argentina and Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Chisari, Omar O.
  • Miller, Sebastián J.

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of carbon taxes on macroeconomic performance when manufacturing firms have the opportunity to change their scale of operation and degree of formality. The hypothesis is that when tax evasion or elusion is possible, it cannot be ruled out that emissions increase rather than decrease due to the reallocation of resources from the rest of manufacturing towards informal small-scale firms. When informality is high, industry could adapt to carbon taxes by reducing the scale of operation of big firms and increasing the number of small firms. However, when taxes are enforceable in all types of firms, there is a cost in terms of GDP and employment, since small-scale firms are more labor intensive. For numerical experiments, two CGE models calibrated for Argentina and Mexico are used. The 'domestic leakage' is found to be more relevant for Argentina than for Mexico.

Suggested Citation

  • Chisari, Omar O. & Miller, Sebastián J., 2014. "Does Firm Heterogeneity Impact the Effectiveness of Carbon Taxes? Experiments in Argentina and Mexico," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6606, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:6606
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Does-Firm-Heterogeneity-Impact-the-Effectiveness-of-Carbon-Taxes-Experiments-in-Argentina-and-Mexico.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brock, William A. & Taylor, M. Scott, 2005. "Economic Growth and the Environment: A Review of Theory and Empirics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 28, pages 1749-1821, Elsevier.
    2. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    3. Liu, Antung Anthony, 2012. "Tax Evasion and Optimal Environmental Taxes," Discussion Papers dp-12-37, Resources For the Future.
    4. Auguste, Sebastián & Bebczuk, Ricardo N. & Sánchez, Gabriel, 2013. "Firm Size and Credit in Argentina," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4498, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Maia David & Alain-Désiré Nimubona & Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné, 2007. "Environmental Taxation and the Structure of the Eco-industry," Working Papers 2007/02, INRA, Economie Publique.
    6. Balistreri, Edward J. & Rutherford, Thomas F., 2013. "Computing General Equilibrium Theories of Monopolistic Competition and Heterogeneous Firms," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1513-1570, Elsevier.
    7. Koskela, Erkki & Schob, Ronnie, 2002. " Optimal Factor Income Taxation in the Presence of Unemployment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(3), pages 387-404.
    8. Marchand, Maurice & Pestieau, Pierre & Wibaut, Serge, 1989. " Optimal Commodity Taxation and Tax Reform under Unemployment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 91(3), pages 547-563.
    9. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    10. Chisari, Omar & Ferro, Gustavo & González, Mariano & León, Sonia & Maquieryra, Javier & Mastronardi, Leonardo & Roitman, Mauricio & Romero, Carlos & Theller, Ricardo, 2010. "Modelo de Equilibrio General Computado para la Argentina 2006," UADE Textos de Discusión 63_2010, Instituto de Economía, Universidad Argentina de la Empresa.
    11. Koskela, Erkki & Schob, Ronnie, 2002. " Optimal Factor Income Taxation in the Presence of Unemployment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(3), pages 387-404.
    12. Sebastian Galiani & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2012. "Modeling Informality Formally: Households And Firms," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 821-838, July.
    13. Rauch, James E., 1991. "Modelling the informal sector formally," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 33-47, January.
    14. Ayyagari, Meghana & Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asl, 2003. "Small and medium enterprises across the globe : a new database," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3127, The World Bank.
    15. Peres, Wilson & Stumpo, Giovanni, 2000. "Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean Under the New Economic Model," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 1643-1655, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mexico; Carbon taxes; General Equilibrium Model (CGE); Argentina; Informality;

    JEL classification:

    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:idb:brikps:6606. 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: (Felipe Herrera Library). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    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.