Who Bears the Economic Costs of Environmental Regulations?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract Public economics has a well-developed literature on tax incidence -the ultimate burdens from tax policy. This literature is used here to describe not only the distributional effects of environmental taxes or subsidies but also the likely incidence of non-tax regulations, energy efficiency standards, or other environmental mandates. Recent papers find that mandates can be more regressive than carbon taxes. We also describe how the distributional effects of such policies can be altered by various market conditions such as limited factor mobility, trade exposure, evasion, corruption, or imperfect competition. Finally, we review data on carbonintensity of production and exports around the world in order to describe implications for effects of possible carbon taxation on countries with different levels of income per capita. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Codes: H220.

What Do Economists Have to Say about the Clean Air Act 50 Years after the Establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency?

“…While we believe improvements in health are first order, affecting many aspects of day-to-day life, there are additional, possibly second-order, distributional issues to be considered. Fullerton and Muehlegger (2017) suggest a number of reasons why the costs of environmental regulation may also be disproportionately borne by disadvantaged households. First, regulation may raise consumer prices and transportation costs, burdening poorer families, although robust empirical evidence on this point is lacking.…”

Home, green home: Policies to decarbonise housing

“…-For existing homes, similarly, reliable certification would make it easier for banks to recognise the credit enhancement, also in terms of both collateral value and borrower cash flow, from greater energy efficiency. Plenty of evidence exists that favourable energy ratings are reflected in higher property prices (Taruttis and Weber, 2022[71]; Copiello and Donati, 2021 [72]; Fuerst et al, 2015[73]; Hyland, Lyons and Lyons, 2013 [74]; Fuerst and Warren-Myers, 2018 [75]). (Taruttis and Weber, 2022[71]; Copiello and Donati, 2021 [72]; Fuerst et al, 2015[73]; Hyland, Lyons and Lyons, 2013 [74]; Fuerst and Warren-Myers, 2018 [75]).…”

The distributional aspects of environmental quality and environmental policies

“…It is thus striking that technology and performance standards remain a common way of regulating environmental externalities. This is partly because the distributional impacts of standards are perceived to be less regressive as those of taxes, although recent empirical evidence finds exactly the opposite that environmental standards can be more regressive than taxes (Fullerton and Muehlegger 2017). This mistaken perception is largely due to the costs of standards being mostly hidden while the costs of environmentally related taxes are explicit (Johnstone and Serret 2006).…”