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Sweden was one of the first countries to introduce a carbon tax back in 1991. We assemble a unique data set tracking CO2 emissions from Swedish manufacturing firms over 26 years to estimate the impact of carbon pricing on firm-level emission intensities. We estimate an emission-to-pricing elasticity of around two, with substantial heterogeneity across subsectors and firms, where higher abatement costs and tighter financial constraints are associated with lower elasticities. A simple calibration suggests that 2015 CO2 emissions from Swedish manufacturing would have been roughly 30% higher without carbon pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations operating in energy-intensive industries have faced increasing pressure to introduce green management practices (GMPs), while seeking to pursue profitability for the benefit of shareholders. Although chief executive officers (CEOs) and corporate boards with environmental governance experience are likely to seek the adoption of GMPs, it may not happen among young and low financial performance corporations owing to a lack of operational experience and financial constraints. Drawing from institutional theory, this study proposes that the influence of CEOs and corporate boards’ environmental governance experience on GMPs will depend on their age and financial position of the corporations. Four hypotheses were tested using panel data (2011–2015) from 209 publicly-listed corporations drawn from energy-intensive industries in Malaysia. The results reveal that CEOs with environmental governance experience among young and high financial corporations are likely to adopt GMPs, but not among old and low financial performance corporations. The results also reveal that corporate boards with environmental governance experience are likely to adopt GMPs among young and old corporations, and low and high financial performance corporations. The findings provide strong implications for government policy in general, and the emerging economies in particular to promote environmental governance for achieving sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complete understanding of the interplay between environmental regulations and fiscal decentralization for the realization of health outcomes is crucial for policy formulation and decision-making. The aim of the study is to investigate both policy variables' separate and combined impacts using data on four BRICS economies from 2000 to 2020. The study has employed the novel method of moments quantile regression to quantify the effect. The findings of the study show (i) a significant impact of regulations on health outcomes in higher quantiles. Environmental regulations have a strong positive impact on all three-health proxies, that is, health expenditures, life expectancy, and the number of infant deaths. Total revenue and expenditure decentralization affect health outcomes positively, while tax revenue decentralization negatively impacts them, with the effect being stronger in the lower quantiles; (ii) the combined impact of decentralization and environmental regulations turned out to be negative and significant in our study; and (iii) all variables have unidirectional causality. However, with tax revenue decentralization, health expenditures, life expectancy, and infant deaths have bidirectional causality. This finding has a strong policy implication for the policymakers. Although both policies positively impact health indicators, their interaction leads to deteriorating health outcomes. From a policy point of view, it is suggested to strike a balance between regulations and fiscal decentralization to realize the full potential of this policy mix to get better health outcomes. This study adds to previous research by incorporating the interconnected impact of environmental regulations and fiscal decentralization on health outcomes in BRICS economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For an extended period, international economists have focused on trade policies related to natural resources in developing countries. However, prevailing analytical frameworks primarily examine the impact of export and import policies when natural resource stocks are subject to singular or distinct adverse externalities. In contrast, developing nations with less stringent environmental management regulations frequently grapple with open-access and industrial pollution externalities. This research extends the analysis of trade policies on natural resources by incorporating the concurrent presence of within- and inter-industry externalities, thereby significantly altering the autarkic equilibrium’s character. A two-sector general equilibrium model assesses the economic, stock conservation, and welfare implications of implementing export and import taxes on renewable resource commodities. The study reveals that resource-exporting countries’ enforcement of resource export taxes can yield a triple win, contingent on the relative damage inflicted by open-access renewable resources and manufacturing sectors. Conversely, import taxes imposed by resource-importing nations result in a triple loss. Furthermore, the model suggests that import subsidies for resource goods can promote resource conservation and welfare benefits compared to free trade without trade policies, mainly when pollution dominates open-access externality in terms of depleting on the environmental stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document calculates targeting performance indicators of electricity subsidies in Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. To do this, beneficiary and benefit incidence indicators are calculated using official household survey data and administrative records on electricity tariffs. In addition, this paper calculates inclusion and exclusion errors in the targeting of electricity subsidies. The results show that the share of poor households that receive the subsidy is very large in Mexico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. However, the distribution of the subsidy is regressive in absolute terms, which implies that most of every dollar spent on keeping electricity prices low will benefit the wealthiest households. This document also finds large inclusion errors suggesting that an important share of the non-poor is also benefiting from the subsidy. These results shed light on the evaluation of electricity subsidies in the region to improve targeting and optimisation of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of cross-ownership on the strategic incentive of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) within a green managerial delegation contract in a triopoly market engaged in price competition. It demonstrates that bilateral cross-ownership between insiders provides weak incentives to undertake ECSR, which has a non-monotone relationship with cross-ownership shares, while it provides strong incentives for outsiders, which increases the ECSR level as cross-ownership increases. It also compares unilateral cross-ownership and finds that a firm that owns shares in its rival has a greater incentive to undertake ECSR than its partially-owned rival, while an outsider has more incentive than firms in bilateral scenarios. These findings reveal that a firm's incentive to increase a market price through ECSR critically depends on its cross-ownership share, while it decreases environmental damage and increases social welfare when the environmental damage is serious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs the CS-ARDL estimator to model the adoption of renewable energy within BRICS nations spanning the period from 1995 to 2021. The key findings reveal that a 1% increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) has a negative impact on green consumption, with approximately a 0.21% decline in the short-term and a 0.48% decrease in the long-term. Furthermore, a 1% increase in GDP leads to a reduction of 0.04% in short-term and 0.12% in long-term green consumption. On a positive note, an augmentation in environmental tax revenues exerts a favorable influence on green consumption, with an increase of about 0.17% in the short-term and 0.20% in the long-term. The presence of a larger green financial market significantly accelerates green consumption. Policy implications encompass strategies such as attracting green FDI, financing environmentally friendly projects, developing digital green financial markets, and expanding trade networks for green utilities with other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the G-Fund, which is one of the five funds in the federal government employee retirement Thrift Savings Plan. The G-Fund is held as internal debt by the U.S. Department of Treasury. Our examination shows that the fund balance is exclusively composed of 1-day notes that are redeemed/reissued every business day, generating $55 trillion in annual debt reissuance. We also show that the fund balance drops substantially as resources are transferred to the general fund when the government is constrained by a debt ceiling and returns to pre-constraint levels when the ceiling is expanded/suspended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset confiscation regimes are present throughout Europe. The Italian State implements a policy stipulating the confiscation of real estate assets from individuals convicted of mafia-related crimes and the re-allocation of these assets to new uses. The policy of confiscation (confisca) and re-allocation (destinazione) is meant to act as both an anti-mafia measure and a way to compensate local communities by converting real estate assets into public amenities. We evaluate the effects of this programme on local areas by estimating its impact on property values in the proximity of confiscations and re-allocations. The findings reveal a negative effect of confiscations and a positive effect of re-allocations on housing prices, mainly visible in mafia strongholds. Both of these trends can be observed in the time periods that directly follow instances of confiscation and re-allocation and appear to be highly localized. A drop in organized crime activity in the streets where re-allocations have occurred could account for some of the gain in property values caused by re-allocations. These findings have implications for the effectiveness of anti-mafia initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life in areas where criminal activity is more prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three diverging interpretations of the property tax dominate the standard economic literature: the benefit view considers it meaningless to assess a distributive profile for the property tax; the capital-tax view assumes a progressive profile; and the excise-tax view assumes a regressive profile. This article discusses these views with theoretical and empirical arguments and defends the excise-tax view. Then, the distributive profile of the property tax in Québec is assessed thanks to a rich administrative database. The property tax appears very regressive. In addition, no general pattern appears depending on the size of the urban zones. At the opposite, property tax-to-income ratios depend steeply on the household composition, because of the economies of scale in housing consumption: they are larger for singles than couples (and even larger for aged singles) and lower for households with children than without children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordable housing projects may affect neighboring property values. Negative spillovers are more likely in developing countries because governments may fail to provide complementary infrastructures such as schools. We study one of the world's largest affordable housing projects, the  Mehr housing project  in Iran, which facilitated the construction of 2 million affordable apartments. Using the universe of house transactions in nineteen large cities, we employ a difference-in-differences methodology to estimate the causal impact of Mehr on neighboring properties. Results show nearby housing prices fall by 11%. This negative effect fades away in neighborhoods that saw a proportionate expansion of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting research into the multifaceted aspects of environmental regulation and the pivotal role played by digitalization in promoting sustainable innovation represents an invaluable compass guiding the path toward green development. However, it receives little attention in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). This study examines the impact of environmental regulations on sustainable innovation in SMEs and the moderating role of digitalization. Findings from a panel of 871 SMEs over the period 2012-2020 reveal that command control and public-participative regulations have a U-shaped relationship with green innovation in SMEs, with digital tools accelerating their effects. Market-incentive regulations exhibit an inverted U-shaped effect, with digitalization enhancing the benefits of pursuing green incentives. These insights emphasize the importance of tailored approaches that consider regulatory diversity and the transformative potential of digitalization in promoting green development within SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper analyzes the role that the climate change concern (CCCi) has on the willingness to accept an environmental tax. The author aims to grasp how individual general tax preferences can differ with respect to the specific (environmental) tax. He focuses attention to the Italian case since it has been argued that the potential acceptability of a carbon tax in Italy is relatively high, and this topic has been scarcely explored so far among Italian citizens (Rotaris and Danielis, 2019). Design/methodology/approach: The author conducted an online survey among 514 Italian economics students. Findings: The CCCi positively influences the environmental tax morale (ETMi). The general tax morale (TMi) positively affects the specific (environmental) TMi. The CCCi alters individual tax preferences. The author evidenced that also subjects with low TMi turned out to be willing to pay an environmental tax if aware of the environmental issues. Research limitations/implications: Although the author used a common methodology in this strand of research, he is aware that in an online survey individuals can be influenced by the self-reporting and hypothetical choice bias (see Swamy et al., 2001), that in turn can characterize their reported preferences. Moreover, even if economics university students are commonly used as a subject pool in experimental economics settings, and although several studies showed that the behavioral responses of students are largely the same as those of nonstudents in identical experiments (for a discussion see Alm, 2012; Choo et al., 2016), there is awareness that in this case, they are not taxpayers yet (Barabas and Jerit, 2010). Practical implications: The author's results remark the importance of increasing climate change awareness among people to let them be more willing to pay the environmental tax, for instance through investments in sensibilization campaigns on the importance of energy source usage and climate-related topic. Then, an increase in the general TMi leads to an increase in the specific (environmental) TMi. The author's evidence showed that people with high tax morale logically recognize the positive impact of paying an environmental tax when the CCCi increases, since the more the theme becomes important, the larger the willingness to pay the specific tax. For this reason, policymakers should carry on campaigns to increase the general level of TMi to increase the overall tax compliance level and the relative tax revenues, following the guidelines given by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019) to support taxpayer education programs, such as including TMi research and analysis into education programs, improving the ease of paying taxes or strengthening revenue–expenditure links to build the social contract. Social implications: It should be paramount to increase awareness about environmental topics among people in general and among those who are relatively tax immoral. The author's results remark on the importance of targeting energy and environmental tax policies to groups rather than to individuals. According to this evidence, we support the use of nonmonetary tools to nudge people in the environmental transition by changing their behavior in energy use, for instance through the taxation on fuel and other nonrenewable energy resources. Originality/value: It is the first empirical study that analyzes the impact of CCCi on the environmental TMi in Italy, in particular controlling for the role of the general willingness to pay taxes (TMi). To obtain individual attitudes toward tax payment, most of the empirical studies in behavioral economics employ international surveys. For studies across citizens living in European countries, the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS) represent the most used ones (see, for instance, Martinez-Vazquez and Torgler (2009) in Spain; Torgler and Werner (2005) in Germany; Nemore and Morone (2019) in Italy). However, these surveys do not allow to study the relationship between the environmental and general TMi across the same subject pool. In fact, despite the ESS (2016) provides individual responses about the willingness to pay an environmental tax, it does not provide information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment (this information is contained only in the ESS wave of 2004, hence referring to a different subject pool). On the contrary, each wave of the EVS (i.e. 2008, 2017) provides information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment, but this survey does not provide a question regarding the willingness to pay an environmental tax. Therefore, to obtain information about the willingness to pay both general and environmental taxes, across the same subject pool, it is needed to carry out a survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumption is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. This study extends the footloose capital model to investigate consumption-generated emissions and consumption taxes in the presence of endogenous firm locations and different market sizes. We find that consumption taxes cause firm relocation and carbon leakage. That is, tax increase in one country induces firms to relocate to the other country; meanwhile, emissions decrease in that country but increase in the other country. We also show that when countries decide on their consumption taxes cooperatively to maximize the joint welfare, the optimal taxes are identical across them, regardless of different market sizes. However, under consumption tax competition, the larger country imposes a higher tax than the smaller country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the income redistribution effects of the Hungarian flat-tax and the recently introduced family allowance scheme. They were done on the basis of people's individual data for 2007, 2011 and 2020, which yields more accurate estimates than the previous studies based on aggregate or survey data. Between 2011 and 2013, progressive taxation was abolished, and a flat income tax was introduced, along with a substantial widening of pre-existing family tax allowances. We find that the tax reform has favoured high-income earners and taxpayers with children, while the main losers were low-income and/or childless workers. While the share of family tax allowances is somewhat lower for the high-income deciles, this effect is in practice negligible, therefore the income tax system can still be considered flat. The family tax allowance scheme favours wealthy families with many children over low-income families with fewer or no children. The biggest winners of the scheme are the taxpayers in the top income decile with three or more children: these 22,000 taxpayers (that is, 2% of all recipients) receive 10% of the total amount of the family tax allowance, and almost a third of the credit allocated to families with three or more children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of the concept of tax expenditures in many countries of the world resulted in the creation of the Global Tax Expenditures Database which included information from Ukraine where regular reporting is conducted on tax benefits which are losses of budget revenues. However, this reporting is incomplete, since it does not include tax expenditures on personal income tax. The introduction of reporting on tax expenditures on this tax puts on the agenda the problem of identifying the elements of its benchmark and tax expenditures. The purpose of this article is to substantiate their main components. The research was carried out using general scientific methods of cognition: critical analysis, combination of normative (conceptual) and positive (legal) approaches, abstract-logical and concrete, comparative analysis. Based on the results of the study, groups of elements that can be attributed to the benchmark of the tax have been identified: incomes provided from sources defined by international treaties of Ukraine; payments that do not increase the taxpayer’s income; incomes whose exemption from taxes ensures the avoidance of double taxation; expenses related to receiving income; incomes that are not included in the taxable amount due to the difficulties of their administration; exclusion from the taxable amount of the revenues that may not qualify as tax expenditures due to small amounts. Tax benefits that can be included in the budget of tax expenditures on the income tax have been identified and classified according to the form of provision and functional orientation. Although only certain provisions of the income tax legislation have been identified, their classification into subgroups may facilitate the determination of the remaining components of the benchmark and tax expenditures.

This paper explores the impact of government environmental protection subsidies on corporate green innovation using panel data of listed companies from 2007 to 2019. The results show that such subsidies can significantly promote corporate green innovation, and the results are robust. Financing constraints, research and development (R&D) willingness, and resource allocation efficiency are important variables for government environmental protection subsidies to promote corporate green innovation. Further analysis shows that compared with industrial policies at the provincial level, the key supportive industrial policies at the central level have a more obvious reinforcing effect on government environmental subsidies to promote enterprise green innovation. Furthermore, government environmental subsidies in the eastern, middle, and western regions benefit the promotion of enterprise green innovation, and the promotional effect is stronger in the middle and western regions. Compared with state-owned enterprises, government environmental subsidies have a more obvious promotional effect on promoting green innovation of non-state-owned enterprises. This paper provides strong theoretical inspiration for better playing the positive incentive role of government intervention with the help of government environmental protection subsidies.

Recently, in their 2019 paper, Poyago-Theotoky and Yong consider a managerial Cournot duopoly with pollution externalities and emission taxes and propose an explicit environmental incentive in a managerial compensation contract. The authors compare several exogenous equilibria emerging in the symmetric sub-games in which the owner offers either the environmental delegation contract or the standard sales delegation contract: abatement and social welfare (resp. emission taxes) under environmental delegation are higher (resp. lower) than under sales delegation. The present work extends their model using a game-theoretic approach to analyse the asymmetric sub-games, in which only one firm adopts the environmental contract, and adds the contract decision stage. Results show that the environmental contract never emerges as the unique sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium of this non-cooperative managerial decision game. Indeed, if the green R&D technology is efficient, the sales contract emerges as the unique Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibrium. Otherwise, if the green R&D technology is inefficient, multiple Nash equilibria in pure strategies exist (coordination game). Our findings offer direct policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gap in the life expectancy of the elderly across educational groups is high, and this will probably increase over the coming decades. In this article, we use a computable overlapping generations model economy to show that the long-term link between heterogeneity in longevity and education could translate into an implicit tax/subsidy on the expected lifetime benefits to lifetime payroll taxes ratio, with rates around 10%, and that such rates pervert redistributive objectives of pension systems. We then analyze some parametric changes aimed at restoring the progressiveness of these systems in the long run, and find that a higher minimum pension or changes in the pension benefit formula go a long way as tools to restore the system's long-term progressivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how a strategy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions combined with economic cycles can lead to particular consumption behaviours. We are assuming the existence of an "economic" demand for "non-green" goods and a "social" demand for "green" goods. We are also assuming the existence of a dispersion of household characteristics organised around an average profile in each class. In times of sustained economic recession, incomes of individual agents fall. Therefore, the budgetary constraint becomes stronger, and falling incomes will have a negative impact on the demand for "green" goods. Consumers with higher incomes will reduce their demand for "green" goods, creating pressure on prices and quantities. As consumers abandon the "green" goods market, they will switch to the "non-green" goods market, especially as prices are lower there, which will stimulate demand and create a new upward pressure on the demand for "non-green" goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the implications of distortions in intertemporal margins for the conduct of climate policy. We do so by introducing a framework that combines a standard two-period overlapping generations (OLG) model with a tractable model of household heterogeneity, in which over-accumulation of capital arises from uninsurable idiosyncratic labor income risk. We illustrate that market-based climate policies must be adjusted when the government cannot provide full insurance to households by taxing only capital and is constrained to transfer resources across generations for risk-sharing. In a numerical exercise, we find that idiosyncratic risk leads to an optimal capital income tax rate of 35 per cent and a carbon price 7.5 per cent lower than its first best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]