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Pigouvian Taxation with Administrative Costs

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  • A. Mitchell Polinsky
  • Steven Shavell

Abstract

This paper examines how the optimal Pigouvian tax should be adjusted to reflect administrative costs. Several cases are examined, depending on whether the administrative costs are fixed per firm taxed or are a function of the amount of tax collected, and on whether such costs are borne by the government or by the taxed firm. In some cases, the presence of administrative costs increases the optimal tax above the external cost, while in other cases it leads to a decrease in the tax.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell, 1981. "Pigouvian Taxation with Administrative Costs," NBER Working Papers 0742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0742
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stern, Nicholas & Carruth, Alan & Deans, David, 1979. "Optimum Taxation With Errors In Administration," Economic Research Papers 269055, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    2. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1979. "A Note on Optimal Taxation and Administrative Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 475-480, June.
    3. Heller, Walter P & Shell, Karl, 1974. "On Optimal Taxation with Costly Administration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(2), pages 338-345, May.
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    1. Rajeev K. Goel & Edward W. T. Hsieh, 2004. "Durable Emissions and Optimal Pigouvian Taxes," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(4), pages 441-449, July.
    2. Jon Harford, 1998. "Pollution and the firm Robert E. Kohn Edward Elgar, 1998, 251 pp," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 26(3), pages 317-324, September.
    3. Polinsky, A Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1992. "Enforcement Costs and the Optimal Magnitude and Probability of Fines," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 133-148, April.
    4. Daniel Jaqua & Daniel Schaffa, 2022. "The case for subsidizing harm: constrained and costly Pigouvian taxation with multiple externalities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(2), pages 408-442, April.
    5. Chung-Huang Huang, 1996. "Effectiveness of environmental regulations under imperfect enforcement and the firm's avoidance behavior," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(2), pages 183-204, September.
    6. Sjak Smulders & Herman R. J. Vollebergh, 2001. "Green Taxes and Administrative Costs: The Case of Carbon Taxation," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral and Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy, pages 91-130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Guy Meunier & Ingmar Schumacher, 2020. "The importance of considering optimal government policy when social norms matter for the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 630-655, June.
    8. Gilbert Metcalf & David Weisbach, 2008. "The Design of a Carbon Tax," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0727, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    9. John Stranlund & Carlos Chávez, 2013. "Who should bear the administrative costs of an emissions tax?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 53-79, August.
    10. Galinato, Gregmar I. & Rohla, Ryne, 2020. "Do privately-owned prisons increase incarceration rates?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Jessica Coria & Jūratė Jaraitė, 2019. "Transaction Costs of Upstream Versus Downstream Pricing of $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 965-1001, April.
    12. De Cara, Stéphane & Henry, Loïc & Jayet, Pierre-Alain, 2018. "Optimal coverage of an emission tax in the presence of monitoring, reporting, and verification costs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 71-93.
    13. Dieter Schmidtchen & Jenny Helstroffer & Christian Koboldt, 2021. "Regulatory failure and the polluter pays principle: why regulatory impact assessment dominates the polluter pays principle," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(1), pages 109-144, January.
    14. Sabinne Lee & Kwangho Jung, 2017. "Exploring Effective Incentive Design to Reduce Food Waste: A Natural Experiment of Policy Change from Community Based Charge to RFID Based Weight Charge," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-17, November.
    15. Kampas, Athanasios, 2001. "Identifying Common Fallacies in the Choice of Environmental Taxes for Agricultural Pollution Control: The Absence of Transaction Costs and the Normality of Agricultural Pollutants," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 1-15, August.
    16. Raphael Calel, 2011. "Climate change and carbon markets: a panoramic history," GRI Working Papers 52, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    17. Kaplow, Louis, 2019. "Optimal regulation with exemptions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 1-39.
    18. Athanasios Kampas & Ben White, 2004. "Administrative Costs and Instrument Choice for Stochastic Non-point Source Pollutants," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 27(2), pages 109-133, February.
    19. Don Fullerton & Andrew Leicester & Stephen Smith, 2008. "Environmental Taxes," NBER Working Papers 14197, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Dieter Schmidtchen & Jenny Helstroffer & Christian Koboldt, 2015. "Replacing the Polluter Pays Principle by the Cheapest Cost Avoider Principle: On the Efficient Treatment of External Costs," Working Papers of BETA 2015-08, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    21. Herath, Deepananda P.B. & Weersink, Alfons, 1999. "Transaction Costs, Economic Instruments And Environmental Policies," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21588, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    22. Ko, Il-Dong, 1988. "Issues in the control of stock externality problems with inflexible policy measures," ISU General Staff Papers 198801010800009859, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    23. Coria, Jessica & Jaraite, Jurate, 2015. "Carbon Pricing: Transaction Costs of Emissions Trading vs. Carbon Taxes," Working Papers in Economics 609, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    24. Rajeev Goel & Edward Hsieh, 1997. "Market structure, pigouvian taxation, and welfare," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 25(2), pages 128-138, June.
    25. Louis Kaplow, 2017. "Optimal Regulation with Exemptions," NBER Working Papers 23887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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