Recycling of Eco-Taxes, Labor Market Effects and the True Cost of Labor- a CGE Analysis

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling has provided a number of important insights about the interplay between environmental tax policy and the pre-existing tax system. In this paper, we emphasize that a labor market policy of recycling tax revenues from an environmental tax to lower employers’ non-wage labor cost depends on how the costs of labor are modeled. We propose an approach, which combines neoclassical substitutability and fixed factor proportions. Our concept implies a user cost of labor which consists of the market price of labor plus the costs of inputs associated with the employment of a worker. We present simulation results based on a CO2 tax and the recycling of its revenues to reduce the non-wage labor cost. One simulation is based on the market price of labor and the other on the user cost of labor. We found a double dividend under the first approach but not under the second one.