Climate Policy and Optimal Public Debt

Marco Runkel () and Maximilian Kellner

VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: This paper analyzes the optimal level of public debt when taxes are used not only for funding public expenditures but also for correcting externalities from climate change. Taking into account externalities may imply the optimal policy to deviate from tax smoothing. Provided accumulated marginal damages from today's consumption are larger than those from tomorrow's consumption, the inclusion of environmental externalities decreases (increases) optimal public debt if tax rates are on the increasing (decreasing) side of the Laffer curve. The reversed holds if the accumulated marginal damage increases over time. Allowing for endogenous adaptation investments reduces the deviation from tax smoothing.

Keywords: environmental externality; public debt; tax smoothing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H63 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/181639/1/VfS-2018-pid-14113.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Climate Policy and Optimal Public Debt (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc18:181639

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