Grandfathered emissions permits redistribute income to wealthy households by creating firm rents that ultimately accrue to shareholders. Consequently, they can be highly regressive, even if the poor do not have large budget shares for polluting goods. Using an analytical model, this paper...

This paper examines whether the welfare gains from technological innovation that reduces future abatement costs are larger or smaller than the “Pigouvian” welfare gains from optimal pollution control. The relative welfare gains from innovation depend on three key factors - the initially...

This paper employs analytical and numerical general equilibrium models to examine the costs of achieving pollution reductions under a range of environmental policy instruments in a second-best setting with pre-existing factor taxes. We compare the costs and overall efficiency impacts of...

This paper explores the interactions between taxes on work-related traffic congestion and pre-existing distortionary taxes in the labor market. A congestion tax raises the overall costs of commuting to work and discourages labor force participation at the margin, when revenues are returned in...

This paper examines whether the welfare gains from technological innovation that reduces future abatement costs are larger or smaller than the “Pigouvian” welfare gains from optimal pollution control. The relative welfare gains from innovation depend on three key factors: the initially...

A number of recent studies have shown that the general equilibrium welfare effects of externality-correcting policies depend importantly on pre-existing taxes in the economy, particularly those that distort the labor market. This paper extends the prior literature by allowing for consumption...

This paper uses a numerical general equilibrium model to examine the quantitative importance of pre-existing factor tax distortions for the welfare effects of restrictive trade policies in economies with and without market power in trade. We analyze tariffs, non-auctioned import quotas (with...

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on the household distribution of the costs and benefits of pollution control policies, and ways of integrating distributional issues into environmental cost–benefit analysis. Most studies find that policy costs fall disproportionately on...

This paper derives and implements formulas for the welfare effects of differentiated and uniform mileage taxes, gasoline taxes, and per mile insurance premiums, for reducing the external costs of passenger vehicle accidents. The model distinguishes three driver groups and five vehicle groups,...

In the wake of the December 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which, if implemented, would oblige the United States and other industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2008–2012, a number of proposals have been offered to increase the incentives for reducing emissions over the nearer...