Environmental Policy Making In Economies With Prior Tax Distortions

This volume contains 31 contributions from Goulder (economics, Stanford U.) and other scholars on the interactions between environmental policy initiatives and distortionary taxes (such as income and sales taxes). Coverage includes such topics as tradeable emissions permits, the substitution of taxes on pollution for existing distortionary taxes, and the effects of environmental policies on income distribution. With the exception of Agnar Sandmo's 1975 paper on the optimal setting of commodity taxes, the contributions have all been published in various economic journals no earlier than 1994. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Focusing on the effects of environmental policy in closed and open economies in the short, medium and long term, this book uses dynamic modelling to study the interactions between economic growth, environmental policy and tax reform.

Many problems prevent the widespread implementation of environmental taxes. This overview offers an economic analysis and practical policy suggestions, with numerous examples including designing the instrument, using the revenue, making the tax acceptable, and the ethical issues.

Presents the paper "Tax Deductions, Environmental Policy, and the "Double Dividend" Hypothesis," written by Ian Parry and Antonio Bento in May 1999 for the World Bank. The authors find that incorporating tax-favored consumption in models of environmental tax swaps may overturn key results from earlier studies.

Many effects of environmental and energy policy are likely to disproportionately burden those with low income. First, it raises the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products that constitute a high fraction of low-income budgets (like gasoline, heating fuel and electricity). Second, the handout of pollution permits to firms provides value to those who own them. Third, low-income individuals may place more value on food and shelter than on improvements in environmental quality, so high-income individuals may get the most benefit of pollution abatement. Fourth, air quality improvements may raise the value of houses owned by landlords, rather than helping renters. These effects might all hurt the poor more than the rich. This book brings together the seminal economics literature that studies whether these fears are valid and whether anything can be done about them.

This yearbook focuses on law and its interdisciplinarity in India. It brings together scholars of law, economics, and policy to foster multidisciplinary thinking and analysis across subject areas. The contributors to this volume embody an interdisciplinary spirit through their academic experience and aim to bring to the fore unique suggestions for a better understanding of the law. The volume explores various key issues that are central to state policy demanded by a functioning democracy, in terms of democratic quality, aspirations and sustainability. It discusses global and social issues, such as foreign interference in domestic elections, feminism, and climate change and looks at other subjects such as economics, religion, history, literature from the perspective of law. A unique contribution to the study of law in India, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of law, jurisprudence, political science, economics, public policy, sociology, social anthropology, the Indian Constitution, and South Asia studies.

Timely and authoritative research on the latest issues in tax policy. Tax Policy and the Economy publishes current academic research on taxation and government spending with both immediate bearing on policy debates and longer-term interest. This volume presents new research on taxation and public expenditure programs, with particular focus on how they affect economic behavior. John Guyton, Kara Leibel, Dayanand Manoli, Ankur Patel, Mark Payne, and Brenda Schafer study the disallowance of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits as a result of IRS audits, and find that in post-audit years, audited taxpayers are less likely than similar non-audited taxpayers to claim EITC benefits. Janet Holtzblatt, Swati Joshi, Nora Cahill, and William Gale provide new empirical evidence on racial differences in the income tax penalty, or bonus, associated with a couple being married. Haichao Fan, Yu Liu, Nancy Qian, and Jaya Wen evaluate how computerizing value-added tax transactions in China affected the tax revenue collected from large manufacturing firms. Niels Johannesen, Daniel Reck, Max Risch, Joel Slemrod, John Guyton, and Patrick Langetieg study data on the ownership of foreign bank accounts and other financial accounts as reported on income tax returns. They find that many of these accounts are in tax havens, and they discuss the impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act on tax compliance and government revenue. Louis Kaplow integrates charitable giving into an optimal income tax framework, and shows that the externalities associated with such giving are key to determining its optimal tax treatment. Finally, Roger Gordon compares caps or quantity targets on emissions with carbon taxes and points out that which one dominates can be situation-specific and depend on a number of features of the economy.

"This book sets out a framework for the economic analysis of different funding sources. It examines a series of new and controversial proposals, including global taxes such as a carbon tax, a global lottery, pre-commitment of aid, increased private donations, and increased remittances by emigrants"--Provided by publisher.