No abstract

for helpful comments on an earlier version. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

No abstract

for helpful comments on an earlier version. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Pollution taxes are believed to burden low-income households that spend a greater than average share of income on pollution-intensive goods. Some propose to offset that effect by returning revenue to low-income workers via reduced labor tax. We build analytical general equilibrium models with both skilled and unskilled labor, and we solve for expressions that show the change in the real net wage of each group. A decomposition shows the effect of the tax rebate, the effect on the uses side of income (higher product prices), and the effect on the sources side of income (relative wage rates). We also include numerical examples. Even though the pollution tax injures both types of labor, we find that returning all of the revenue to the low-skilled workers is still not enough to offset the effect of higher product prices. Moreover, changing wage rates may further hurt low-skilled labor. In almost all of our examples, the rebate of all revenue to low-skilled labor still does not prevent a reduction in their overall real net wage.