 Dynamic corrective taxes with time-varying salienceBen Gilbert and Joshua Graff Zivin Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2020, vol. 103, issue C Abstract: Economies across the globe are becoming increasingly cashless and many payment systems have become automated, driving a temporal wedge between consumption and payment and generally making the costs of consumption intermittently salient. Since this inconsistent price salience alters demand elasticities, it is a particular concern for goods that generate externalities and the price-based policies deployed to address them. This paper derives optimal dynamic corrective taxes for suboptimal and persistent consumption decisions. These taxes depend on the agent's ability to commit to a future consumption path. We also characterize a second-best constant tax and the excess burden from time-invariant tax rates. When calibrated to U.S. residential electricity consumption, the model shows that the second-best constant tax is more than twice the marginal external cost of carbon emissions. Keywords: Salience; Inattention; Optimal taxes; Energy demand; Consumption persistence (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:jeeman:v:103:y:2020:i:c:s0095069620300796 DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102356 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier |
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