 The distributional effects of a nitrogen tax: Evidence from GermanyClara Johne, Enno Schröder and Hauke Ward Ecological Economics, 2023, vol. 208, issue C Abstract: The high level of nitrogen emissions over the last decades and their adverse impact on the natural environment and human health are a pressing environmental issue. A nitrogen tax can be a cost-efficient and effective policy instrument to reduce nitrogen emissions. However, adverse effects on low- and middle-income households might lead to societal and political frictions that could end up in resistance. In this paper we investigate how a hypothetical nitrogen tax covering the specific external costs of nitrogen could be implemented and estimate its short-term distributional effects on household income groups in Germany. The findings show that the proposed tax would be regressive. However, if the tax rate is set equal to the true cost of nitrogen, the monetary impacts would overall be small, ranging from 1.15% of income for the first income quintile to 0.66% for the fifth. Complementary policy measures to lower the burden on low-income households, farmers and the energy sector could preempt social resistance against the tax. Keywords: Nitrogen tax; Environmental policy; Distributional effects; Household impacts; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:208:y:2023:i:c:s0921800923000782 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107815 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier |
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