In this paper we study the taxation of car ownership, car use and public transport in the presence of externalities within the framework of a discrete/continuous choice model. We first derive optimal taxes in a simplified setting, emphasizing the specific role of fixed car ownership taxes and...

This paper compares the current taxation of diesel and gasoline cars in Belgium with the guidelines for optimal taxation. We find that diesel cars are still taxed much less than gasoline cars, resulting in a dominant market share for diesel cars in the car stock. If the fuel tax is the main...

The consensus view among economists seems to be that a green tax reform is unlikely to be associated with a "double dividend" (Bovenberg 1998). However, the results derived in the present paper suggest that this view needs to be qualified. We demonstrate that a green tax reform is likely to be...