On the Economics of a Carbon Tax for the United States

Gilbert Metcalf

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2019, vol. 50, issue 1 (Spring), 405-484

Abstract: Climate change is driven by the buildup of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, which is predominantly the result of the world's consumption of fossil fuels. GHGs are a global pollution externality for which a global solution is required. I describe the role a domestic carbon tax could play in reducing U.S. emissions and compare and contrast alternative approaches to reducing our GHG pollution. Carbon taxes have been implemented in 23 jurisdictions around the world. I provide evidence on emission reductions and the economic impact of British Columbia's carbon tax, a broad-based carbon assessment that has been in effect for over a decade. I also provide an analysis of carbon taxes used in the countries that belong to the European Union.

Keywords: Climate change; carbon tax (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/on-the-economic ... r-the-united-states/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bin:bpeajo:v:50:y:2019:i:2019-01:p:405-484

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity from Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Haowen Chen ().