1,721,262 research outputs found
A political economy model of road pricing
Full text linkIn this paper, we take a political economy approach to study the introduction of urban congestion tolls, using a simple majority voting model. Making users pay for external congestion costs is for an economist an obvious reform, but successful introductions of externality pricing in transport are rare. The two exceptions are London and Stockholm that are characterized by two salient facts. First, the toll revenues were tied to improvements of public transport. Second, although a majority was against road pricing before it was actually introduced, a majority was in favor of the policy reform after its introduction. This paper constructs a model to explain these two aspects. Using a stylized model with car and public transport, we show that it is easier to obtain a majority when the toll revenues are used to subsidize public transport than when they are used for a tax refund. Furthermore, introducing idiosyncratic uncertainty for car substitution costs, we can explain the presence of a majority that is ex ante against road pricing and ex post in favor. The ex ante majority against road pricing also implies that there is no majority for organizing an experiment that would take away the individual uncertainty.
Optimal Pricing for Urban Road Transport Externalities
Full text linkA partial equilibrium model for the urban transport market is described. The urban transport market is represented as a set of interrelated transport submarkets, one per type of mode or vehicle and period. This allows to represent in detail the different external costs associated with the use of different modes: congestion, accidents, air pollution and noise. The model allows to find second best optima that combine optimally given pricing and environmental regulation instruments. The model is demonstrated for Brussels. For this city the welfare effects of alternative sets of instruments are compared.
Some implications of increased cooperation in world oil conservation
Full text linkIn this article, Stephen Brown and Hillard Huntington combine recent studies of world oil markets and the nascent literature on damage estimates from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to derive cost and benefit curves for the reduction of these emissions through cooperative programs of oil conservation. Their analysis shows that the desirability of extending cooperation in global energy conservation policies is essentially an empirical issue rather than a conceptual one. The current evidence suggests that over the next two decades, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will have an incentive to reduce its oil consumption and the associated CO2 emissions by more than is optimal from a world perspective. During this period, extending cooperation to the oil-importing developing countries may push oil conservation too far.Petroleum industry and trade
Global warming policy: some economic implications
Full text linkMany analysts believe that the emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity are contributing to global warming, but the linkage is highly uncertain. The largest such source of these gases is carbon dioxide (CO2) from the growing consumption of fossil fuels. Consequently, the conservation of fossil fuels figures prominently in any strategy to reduce the threat of global warming. Because there is considerable uncertainty about the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions but the costs of conservation can be readily quantified, some analysts have suggested that reducing the emissions is like insurance. In this article, Stephen Brown integrates a growing literature on the damage caused by global warming with a world energy model to do a cost-benefit analysis of U.S. compliance with the accord adopted at the United Nations conference on global warming held in late 1997. His analysis shows that reducing U.S. emissions to comply with the accord would represent too much insurance against global warming.Power resources ; Environmental protection ; Pollution
Environmental Tax Reform with Vertical Tax Externalities
Full text linkThe paper studies a regional environmental tax reform in a federal state. A region unilaterally improves the environmental quality by increasing its energy taxes. The regional government recycles the excess tax revenues by lowering either pre-existing distorting labor or capital taxes. This regional tax reform causes a vertical tax externality in the federal budget. We show how the nature of this externality depends on the environmental goal, the tax-recycling scenario, the initial local and federal tax shares, and the relative importance of the reforming region in the federal state. Simulations illustrate the effects for Belgium and US.Tax Reform; Vertical Tax Externality; Federalism
The political economy of fixed regional investment shares with an illustration for Belgian Railway investments
Full text linkMany local public goods are allocated by federal governments using fixed regional shares: every region is entitled a fixed share of the total budget for a particular type of public good. This paper compares this fixed regional sharing rule with two alternative allocation rules: first best and common pool allocation. We find that the fixed regional sharing rule performs relatively well if the regional shares are reasonable. Legislative bargaining theory is used to study the determination of the fixed regional shares.local public goods, political economy, railways
The Cost Effectiveness of Environmental Policy Instruments in the Presence of Imperfect Compliance
Full text linkWe aim to integrate information, monitoring and enforcement costs into the choice of environmental policy instruments. We use a static partial equilibrium framework to study different combinations of regulatory instruments (taxes, standards…) and enforcement instruments (criminal fine, administrative fine…). The firms’ compliance decisions depend on the instrument combination selected by the government. The model is used to compare the welfare effects of different instrument combinations for the textile industry in Flanders. We find that administrative, implementation, enforcement and monitoring costs are important to decide on the necessity of an environmental policy. Moreover, we show that emission taxes are not necessarily the most cost-effective instrument. This result holds even if we include industry heterogeneity. The decision of whether to pursue an environmental policy or not depends crucially on the formulation of an appropriate monitoring and enforcement policy.K32 Environmental Law, K42 Illegal behaviour and enforcement of law, Q28 Government policy
The Relative Efficiency of Environmental Policy Instruments in a Second-Best Setting with Costly Monitoring and Enforcements.
Full text linkIn this paper we incorporate monitoring and enforcement aspects in the choice of environmental policy instruments in a general equilibrium framework. Goulder et al. (J.Pub.Econ., 1999) look into the choice of policy instruments in the presence of distortionary taxes. We extend this model by no longer assuming full compliance from firms. A violating firm is caught with a certain probability by the inspection agency. Once a violator is detected, he always has to pay a fine. With a positive, finite expected fine and a probability of detection smaller than unity, there will always be a certain proportion of noncompliance in the economy. We calculate the gross efficiency costs of different policy instruments (emission tax, output tax, tradable permits and technology mandate). We illustrate the model for different price instruments (emission tax, output tax and tradable permits). We find that the relative inefficiency of grandfathered tradable permits vis-à-vis emission taxes found in a second-best setting with perfect compliance, is strongly decreased with imperfect compliance.
Analysing Welfare Reform in a Microsimulation-AGE Model
Full text linkWe present a fully integrated microsimulation-AGE model that uses the labour market model PACE-L and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We use the model to analyse reform proposals designed to encourage labour force participation at the lower end of the wage distribution. A special focus of this paper is on comparing the fully disaggregated version of the model with more aggregated ones in order to pin down in which respects disaggregation can actually further our insights, and in which respects aggregation can be justifiedapplied general equilibrium, discrete working time choice, labour market, wage bargaining, labour market reform, logit model
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