76 research outputs found
Understanding transport behaviour and policies to increase walking and cycling
No full textThis thesis examined the factors affecting active mobility, walking and cycling, in urban environments using a multilevel perspective, from individual agency to built environment, to national-level policies. Understanding that health behaviour change is complex, and cannot be achieved through a single one-size-fits-all policy is the key premise of this thesis. In order to recognise the system-wide influences on walking and cycling, a socio-ecological framework was developed. This combines insights from psychological literature, transportation, and broader policy, and presents their relative roles and interactions in determining urban transport. Statistical analysis based on data from seven European cities showed the crucial role attitudes and psychosocial variables play in determining active travel. Based on the principles of realist evaluation, an analysis of interventions aimed at changing the psychosocial mindset of study participants in four of the seven cities revealed the short-term positive effects of such soft-measure interventions. However, the analysis also emphasised the need to change people's experiences for these measures to have a lasting effect. Finally, an economic analytical framework was developed to evaluate the potential effectiveness of a nation-wide policy (higher fuel taxes) to reduce car use and increase active travel. While including physical inactivity as a social cost greatly increases the optimal value of a fuel tax, limiting factors such as the psychosocial mindsets of people, or lack of suitable infrastructure, reduce the potential impact of such policies. Hence, working in an integrated, multidisciplinary manner is necessary for changing complex systems such as urban transport, physical activity-related health, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions
Antworten auf zentrale Fragen zur Einführung von CO2 Preisen
No full textDiese Zusammenstellung einiger in der Öffentlichkeit häufig diskutierter Fragen zur CO2-Bepreisung bereitet den Stand der Forschung für Interessierte auf.LEUREZitierung: Mattauch, Linus, Felix Creutzig, Nils aus dem Moore, Max Franks, Franziska Funke, Michael Jakob, Lutz Sager, Moritz Schwarz, Achim Voß, Marie-Luise Beck, Claus-Heinrich Daub, Moritz Drupp, Felix Ekardt, Gregor Hagedorn, Mathias Kirchner, Tobias Kruse, Thomas Loew, Karsten Neuhoff, Isabella Neuweg, Sonja Peterson, Matthias Roesti, Gerhard Schneider, Robert Schmidt, Reimund Schwarze, Jan Siegmeier, Philippe Thalmann, Johannes Wallacher (2019). Antworten auf zentrale Fragen zur Einführung von CO_2-Preisen. Gestaltungsoptionen und ihre Auswirkungen für den schnellen Übergang in die klimafreundliche Gesellschaft. Diskussionsbeiträge der Scientists for Future 2, 2019, doi:10.5281/zenodo.337115
die Wohlfahrtsimplikationen der Finanzierung klimafreundlicher öffentlicher Investitionen
No full textClimate policy is more than carbon pricing: successful decarbonization of a national economy creates new rents and affects existing ones, requires public investment, has distributional implications and changes preferences.
This thesis argues that economic theory would be better equipped for analyzing the macroeconomic trade-offs of climate change mitigation if it put greater emphasis on three principles: first, a distinction between rents, derived from fixed factors of production, and capital, that can be accumulated, is needed to understand the impact of climate policy on the wealth distribution. Second, for both rent taxation and financing low-carbon public investment, there is no standard equity-efficiency trade-off. Instead, both rent appropriation and public investment can enhance efficiency and reduce inequality at the same time, when designed appropriately. These first two points are substantiated by incorporating fixed factors of production and household heterogeneity in preferences and income sources into otherwise standard models of economic growth, both of the infinitely-lived agent and the overlapping-generations type. Third, to evaluate consumption decisions, a distinction between welfare as subjective well-being and welfare as the satisfaction of preferences is vital. This follows from applying the behavioral account of decision-making to consumer choices in carbon-intensive sectors such as transportation.
Specifically, the following results are shown: (1) It is proved that to reach socially optimal outcomes, if there are any rents from (quasi-)fixed factors such as land or the atmospheric sink, these should be taxed and the revenue should be invested into productive public capital or redistributed to poor, newborn generations. (2) Simulations indicate that the timing of public investment relative to the timing of an increase in the carbon price or in technology subsidies matters for avoiding a lock-in. (3) If there are two cohorts of wealth owners in the economy, those who save dynastically and those who save in a life-cycle manner, capital taxation has a special role for changing the wealth distribution provided the revenue is used for public investment. It is proved that capital taxation can be Pareto-improving and inequality-reducing. In contrast, consumption and labor taxation are more efficient, but do not reduce inequality. (4) Given that the transport infrastructure and other contextual factors largely influence actual mobility behavior, evaluating the welfare gain of low-carbon public investment needs to differentiate between subjective well-being and preference satisfaction as distinct welfare conceptions.
These results can be seen as steps towards evaluating the extent of the validity of the two major societal narratives about capitalism, which is considered to be either liberation or exploitation, for the transition to a low-carbon economy.Klimapolitik geht über die Bepreisung von Kohlenstoff hinaus: Eine erfolgreiche Dekarbonisierung einer Volkswirtschaft schafft neue und beeinflusst bestehende Renten, erfordert öffentliche Investitionen und verändert Präferenzen.
Die vorliegende Dissertation zeigt auf, dass volkswirtschaftliche Theorie die makroökonomischen Abwägungen, die bei der Bekämpfung des Klimawandels auftreten, besser untersuchen könnte, wenn die folgenden drei Gesichtspunkte größeres Gewicht bekämen: erstens bedarf es einer Unterscheidung zwischen akkumulierbarem Kapital und Renten, die auf fixe Produktionsfaktoren anfallen. Diese Unterscheidung erlaubt ein besseres Verständnis des Einflusses von Klimapolitik auf die Vermögensentwicklung. Zweitens gibt es für Rentenbesteuerung und die Finanzierung von kohlenstoffarmen Investitionen keine gewöhnliche Abwägung zwischen Gleichheit und Effizienz. Stattdessen können Rentenbesteuerung und öffentliche Investitionen gleichzeitig die Effizienz erhöhen und die Ungleichheit senken, sofern sie entsprechend ausgestaltet werden. Diese ersten beiden Aussagen werden dadurch belegt, dass fixe Produktionsfaktoren sowie Heterogenität in Präferenzen und Einkommensquellen der Haushalte in übliche Wachstumsmodelle integriert werden – sowohl in solche mit unendlich lange lebenden Agenten als auch in solche mit überlappenden Generationen. Drittens ist für die Bewertung von Konsumentscheidungen eine Unterscheidung zwischen den beiden Wohlfahrtskonzepten des subjektiven Wohlergehens und der Präferenzerfüllung unerlässlich. Dies folgt aus Ergebnissen der Verhaltensforschung über die Entscheidungsfindung von Konsumenten in karbonintensiven Wirtschaftssektoren wie dem Transportwesen.
Insbesondere werden die folgenden Resultate erzielt: (1) Für den Fall, dass Renten auf (quasi-)fixe Faktoren wie Land oder die Atmosphärensenke auftreten, wird bewiesen, dass es zum Erreichen des sozialen Optimums nötig ist, jene Renten zu besteuern und die Einnahmen in produktives öffentliches Kapital zu investieren oder an neugeborene Generationen zu verteilen. (2) Simulationen belegen, dass der Zeitpunkt von öffentlichen Investitionen, bezogen auf den Zeitpunkt einer Erhöhung des Kohlenstoffpreises oder von Technologiesubventionen, bedeutsam für die Vermeidung eines Lock-In- Effekts ist. (3) Wenn es in der Wirtschaft zwei Gruppen von Vermögensbesitzern gibt, solche, die dynastisch sparen, und solche, die über den Lebenszyklus sparen, kommt der Kapitalbesteuerung eine besondere Rolle dafür zu, die Vermögensverteilung zu verändern, wenn durch die Einnahmen öffentliches Kapital bereitgestellt wird. Es wird gezeigt, dass Kapitalbesteuerung Paretoverbessernd wirken und gleichzeitig die Ungleichheit senken kann. Demgegenüber sind eine Konsum- oder Arbeitsbesteuerung zwar effizienter, senken aber die Ungleichheit nicht. (4) Da der Einfluss der Transportinfrastruktur und anderer kontextabhängiger Faktoren auf die Wahl von Verkehrsmitteln hoch ist, muss eine Bewertung der Wohlfahrtsgewinne durch öffentliche Verkehrsinvestitionen zwischen subjektivem Wohlergehen und Präferenzerfüllung als unterschiedlichen Wohlfahrtskonzepten differenzieren.
Für den Übergang zur kohlenstoffarmen Wirtschaft können diese Ergebnisse als Schritte hin zu einer Abgrenzung der jeweiligen Gültigkeitsbereiche der beiden großen gesellschaftlichen Auffassungen über den Kapitalismus dienen
How to make a carbon tax reform progressive: The role of subsistence consumption
No full textThis letter analyzes the distributional effects of a carbon tax reform when households must consume carbon-intensive goods above a subsistence level. The reform is progressive if revenues are recycled as uniform lump-sum transfers, in other cases it is regressive
Principles of decarbonization politics
No full textClimate change mitigation politics is not delivering on climate targets. Recent research suggests that a general formal framework that represents the behaviour of citizens, consumers, firms and parties explains why
When standards have better distributional consequences than carbon taxes
No full textCarbon pricing is the efficient instrument to reduce emissions. However, the geographical and sectoral coverage of substantial carbon pricing is low, often due to concerns that pricing may increase economic inequality. Regulatory standards such as fuel economy standards are more popular. But do they have an equity advantage over carbon pricing? We develop two new formal models to identify economic situations, in which standards could be preferred over carbon pricing. First, we prove that an efficiency standard can be more equitable than carbon pricing when consumers exhibit a preference for high-carbon technology attributes. Evidence from the US vehicle market confirms this finding. Second, we show theoretically, and by means of a numerical application to the Chinese transport sector, that intensity standards are preferable when richer households consume more goods with higher carbon intensity. Our results hold when the revenue from carbon pricing is not very progressively redistributed. These insights can help advance decarbonisation when pricing remains unpopular
Capital beats coal: How collecting the climate rent increases aggregate investment
No full textCarbon pricing is the key to decarbonizing the economy, as it regulates emission flows. However, a price on carbon also collects rents from underlying fossil resource stocks, giving rise to unexamined macroeconomic effects. This article shows that if these stocks are tradable, carbon pricing shifts aggregate investment towards alternative assets. If capital is underaccumulated, this implies lower costs of climate policy and a welfare improvement. We prove this beneficial investment shift from fossil stocks towards capital for the case of an emission trading scheme: specifically, we show that the higher the share of auctioned permits, the larger the beneficial investment effect. The same holds for a ‘stock instrument’, under which the right to recurrently receive emission permits is a tradable asset, making the effect robust to trade restrictions on fossil stocks. Our main result contradicts the common perception of a trade-off between climate change mitigation policy and growth
the role of subsistence consumption
No full textThis letter analyzes the distributional effects of a carbon tax reform when households must consume carbon-intensive goods above a subsistence level. The reform is progressive if revenues are recycled as uniform lump-sum transfers, in other cases it is regressive
Climate policy when preferences are endogenous— and sometimes they are
No full textPolicy can change people's preferences. For example, how cities are
designed has an impact on future preferences about modes of transport,
even after people move. We examine the normative significance
of such preference formation for climate policy design, in which such
effects are commonly ignored. Yet, on the long time scales that climate
policy must consider, it is likely to change preferences. We argue
that this is of high relevance for the adequate evaluation of mitigation
options. We further argue that the orthodox approach of addressing
environmental concerns with marginal pricing and Pigouvian taxes is
missing a key element. Policies that change preferences can influence the cost of carbon mitigation, and hence change the optimal carbon tax
rate. As an attempt to assist in policy making with endogenous preferences,
we examine alternatives to preference satisfaction for normative
economics. Some new arguments for and against established positions
in welfare theory are considered. We conclude that substantive welfare
criteria, or perhaps a reinterpretation of the standard liberal approach
to welfare as about fundamental preferences, may serve as a better
guide to policy where preferences are endogenous.</p
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