Carbon Taxes from an Economic Perspective

Claudia Kettner and Daniela Kletzan-Slamanig
Additional contact information
Daniela Kletzan-Slamanig: WIFO

No 554, WIFO Working Papers from WIFO

Abstract: Economic literature generally favours market-based instruments for regulating environmental externalities since they ensure compliance at the least cost to society. Emission taxes have been increasingly introduced internationally, with the focus shifting to CO2 after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. In this paper, the theoretical economic literature on energy and emission taxes is reviewed. The focus is on theoretical recommendations regarding the optimal design of environmental and especially carbon taxes, their performance relative to other instruments, the concept of a double dividend as well as potential competitiveness and distribution effects. Carbon taxation can play a key role in climate policy and for achieving long-term emission reductions. This overview of economic considerations may help in creating a sustainable, effective and efficient regulatory system for reducing emissions.

Keywords: carbon pricing; climate policy; environmental tax reform; instrument choice; market-based instruments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-pke, nep-reg and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wifo.ac.at/wwa/pubid/60971 abstract (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:wfo:wpaper:y:2018:i:554

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIFO Working Papers from WIFO Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Florian Mayr ().