This paper examines the rationale for the different tax treatment of gasoline and diesel cars currently observed in Europe. First, we analyse possible justifications for a different tax treatment: pure tax revenue considerations, externality considerations and constraints on the tax instruments...

The paper examines welfare improving and revenue neutral directions marginal policy reforms for an economy with nonidentical individuals and an externality that has a feedback effect on the consumption of taxed goods. It considers three types of policy instruments: the indirect taxes, the...

This paper examines the rationale for the different tax treatment of gasoline and diesel cars currently observed in Europe. First, we analyse possible justifications for a different tax treatment: pure tax revenue considerations, externality considerations and constraints on the tax instruments...

Starting from the fundamental principles of transport pricing the paper discusses the relative merits of a number of policy measures. It is argued that in the short to medium run the discouragement of the purchase of new diesel cars is the most important environmental measure that can be taken....

The paper analyses several possible concepts for transport accounts. First, it considers business type of transport accounts. It is shown that in general these are not a good guide for transport policy. Next, the paper examines the potential of social transport accounts and sees to what extent...

The paper reviews the role of taxation in controlling transport externalities. It argues that the design of transport taxes should take into account pre-existing tax distortions in the economy and looks at the implications of restrictions on the transport instruments at the disposal of the...

The paper assesses the marginal welfare and equity impacts of three transport instruments in the presence of three transport externalities: congestion, air pollution and accidents. It considers a second-best economy in which the government has to use distortionary taxes for revenue-raising and...

A number of recent studies on taxation in the presence of externalities in a second-best framework consider the implications of taking into account the feedback effects of environmental quality. This paper explores by means of GEM-E3, a computable general equilibrium model for the EU countries,...

This paper deals with the reforming transport pricing in Belgium. An economic perspective on equity, efficiency and acceptability is presented.