The cost of climate policy depends on the no-policy alternative without which the opportunity cost of climate action cannot be determined. This reference path has to reflect the current failure in the market for carbon emissions: due to a negative externality, private investment decisions do not consider the climate damage they entail; agents overinvest in conventional capital and underinvest in climate capital. Internalization of climate damage lowers the private return to capital; agents reduce investment in favor of mitigation and consumption. Optimal climate mitigation increases welfare of the present and the future. Simulation of the inefficient no-policy scenario in DICE-07 confirms that this point numerically. (author's abstract)

Determining the social cost of carbon emissions (SCC) is a crucial step in the economic analysis of climate change policy as the US government's recent decision to use a range of estimates of the SCC centered at $77/tC (or, equivalently, $21/tCO2) in cost-benefit analyses of proposed emission-control legislation underlines. This note reviews the welfare economics theory fundamental to the estimation of the SCC in both static and intertemporal contexts, examining the effects of assumptions about the typical agent's pure rate of time preference and elasticity of marginal felicity of consumption, production and mitigation technology, and the magnitude of climate-change damage on estimates of the SCC. We high-light three key conclusions: (i) an estimate of the SCC is conditional on a specific policy scenario, the details of which must be made explicit for the estimate to be meaningful; (ii) the social discount rate relevant to intertemporal allocation decisions also depends on the policy scenario; and (iii) the SCC is uniquely defined only for policy scenarios that lead to an efficient growth path because marginal costs and benefits of emission mitigation diverge on inefficient growth paths. We illustrate these analytical conclusions with simulations of a growth model calibrated to the world economy. (authors' abstract)

This paper analyzes the effects of globalization on implicit tax rates (ITRs) on labour income, capital income, and consumption in the EU15 and Central and Eastern European New Member States (CEE NMS). We find a positive effect of globalization on the ITR on labour income in the EU15, but no effect on the ITR on capital income, and a negative effect on ITR on consumption. There is a significant negative effect on the ITR on capital income in the social-democratic and southern welfare regimes, a marginally significant negative effect in the liberal regime; a negative effect on the ITR on consumption in the social-democratic, conservative, and liberal regimes; and a positive effect on the ITR on labour income in all welfare regimes. In the CEE NMS there is no effect of globalization on any ITRs. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination

A two-sector OLG model illuminates the intergenerational effects of a tax that protects an environmental stock. A traded asset capitalizes the economic returns to future tax-induced environmental improvements, benefiting the current asset owners, the old generation. Absent a transfer, the tax harms the young generation by decreasing their real wage. Future generations benefit from the tax-induced improvement in environmental stock. The principal intergenerational conflict arising from the tax is between generations alive at the time society imposes the policy, not between generations alive at different times. A Pareto-improving tax can be implemented under various political economy settings. (authors' abstract)

O setor de transporte automotivo é um dos principais responsáveis pelas emissões de gases nocivos à saúde ou causadores do efeito estufa. Existem inúmeras propostas econômicas para a redução destas emissões, que se dividem basicamente entre regulamentação de emissões e impostos sobre combustível ou veículos. Apresentaremos neste trabalho um esquema de feebate, uma alternativa baseada num mercado de carbono em que um carro que tem emissões de poluentes abaixo de certo nível ganha um subsídio para sua compra, enquanto que outro que apresenta emissões acima paga um imposto. Este esquema é projetado para que no fim, contabilizados o imposto pago e o subsídio oferecido, faça com que o governo não tenha receita, nem despesas com este. Para mostrar sua eficácia, faremos simulações com base em estimações do mercado de automóveis brasileiro do período de 2008 a 2012 usando um modelo de escolhas discretas através de um logit multinomial aninhado, e faremos análises de bem estar. / The automotive transport sector is one of the main responsible for emissions of harmful gases and greenhouse gases. There are numerous economics proposals for reducing these emissions, which are basically divided between emission regulations and taxes on fuel or vehicles. We will present in this work a feebate scheme, an alternative based on a carbon market in which a car that has emissions of pollutants below a certain level gains a subsidy for its purchase, while another that presents emissions above a level pays a tax. This scheme is designed so that at the end, counting the tax paid and the subsidy offered, make the government have no revenue, nor expenses with it. To show its effectiveness, we will make simulations of this scheme based on estimates of the Brazilian auto market from 2008 to 2012 using a discrete choice model with a nested multinomial logit, and we will analise social welfare changes.

O setor de transporte automotivo é um dos principais responsáveis pelas emissões de gases nocivos à saúde ou causadores do efeito estufa. Existem inúmeras propostas econômicas para a redução destas emissões, que se dividem basicamente entre regulamentação de emissões e impostos sobre combustível ou veículos. Apresentaremos neste trabalho um esquema de feebate, uma alternativa baseada num mercado de carbono em que um carro que tem emissões de poluentes abaixo de certo nível ganha um subsídio para sua compra, enquanto que outro que apresenta emissões acima paga um imposto. Este esquema é projetado para que no fim, contabilizados o imposto pago e o subsídio oferecido, faça com que o governo não tenha receita, nem despesas com este. Para mostrar sua eficácia, faremos simulações com base em estimações do mercado de automóveis brasileiro do período de 2008 a 2012 usando um modelo de escolhas discretas através de um logit multinomial aninhado, e faremos análises de bem estar. / The automotive transport sector is one of the main responsible for emissions of harmful gases and greenhouse gases. There are numerous economics proposals for reducing these emissions, which are basically divided between emission regulations and taxes on fuel or vehicles. We will present in this work a feebate scheme, an alternative based on a carbon market in which a car that has emissions of pollutants below a certain level gains a subsidy for its purchase, while another that presents emissions above a level pays a tax. This scheme is designed so that at the end, counting the tax paid and the subsidy offered, make the government have no revenue, nor expenses with it. To show its effectiveness, we will make simulations of this scheme based on estimates of the Brazilian auto market from 2008 to 2012 using a discrete choice model with a nested multinomial logit, and we will analise social welfare changes.

This paper discusses the implications of autonomous-connected-electric-shared vehicles (ACES) for public finance, which have so far been widely ignored in the literature. In OECD countries, 5-12% of federal and up to 30% of local tax revenues are currently collected from fuel and vehicle taxation. The diffusion of ACES will significantly reduce these important sources of government revenues and affect transport-related government expenditures, unless additional policies are introduced to align the new technological context with the tax revenue requirements. We argue that the realization of socioeconomic benefits of ACES depends on the implementation of tailored public finance policies, which can take advantage of the increase in data availability from the further digitalization of transportation systems. In particular, the introduction of road tolls in line with "user Pays" and "polluter Pays" principles will become more feasible for policy. Moreover, innovation in taxation schemes to fit the changing technological circumstances may alter the relative importance of levels of governance in transport policy making, likely shifting power towards local, in particular urban, governmental levels. We finally argue that, given the risk of path-dependencies and lock-in to sub-optimal public finance regimes if policies are implemented late, further research and near-term policy actions taken during the diffusion process of ACES are required.

This paper estimates the effect of globalization on the implicit tax rates (ITR) on capital income, labor income and consumption, and the share of social protection expenditures in total public expenditures in Western and Eastern Europe. It tests the coexistence of efficiency and compensation effects of globalization on the expenditure as well as the revenue sides of government budgets. In Western Europe, globalization leads to an increase in social expenditures; however these expenditures are to an increasing extent financed by taxes on labor income. There is no effect of the ITR on capital income, whereas the ITR on consumption decreases. There are important differences between the welfare states. In the conservative regimes, social expenditures increase due to globalization, but they are financed to an increasing extent by taxes on labor. In the social democratic regimes, not only social expenditures, but also the ITRs on capital income and consumption decrease as a result of globalization, whereas the ITR on labor income increases. In the liberal regimes, the ITR on labor income is rising, while social expenditures and the ITR on consumption is declining. In the southern regimes, the ITRs on both capital income and consumption are decreasing. In the CEE NMS, on average, there seems to be no statistically significant effect of globalization on social expenditures nor on the ITR on capital and labor income. Globalization affects only the ITR on consumption, leading to a decline. However, different welfare regimes react differently: there is a negative effect of globalization on social spending in the Baltic countries, and a negative effect on the ITR on capital income in the post-communist European regimes. (author's abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers SFB International Tax Coordination

The draft for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base Directive in the European Union includes the suggestion for an apportionment formula which allocates taxable group profits to group member corporations. These allocated profits shall then be taxed in the respective Member States. The draft directive delegates the right to define one factor of the apportionment formula, the term "Employee" to the Member States, who are therefore free to choose a narrow or a broad definition, the latter including also atypical employment schemes. Using a game-theoretic approach the paper shows that the individually rational strategy of any Member State to define "Employee" broadly so as to maximize the volume of the apportionment factor and thus maximize the allocated share of taxable income is only the best solution when tax rate differences and differences in the volume of atypical employment schemes are disregarded. If such differentials and the corporate groups' reactions to different Member States' definitions are included in modelling the game's pay-offs a narrow definition of "Employee" yields the highest individual pay-offs to the Member States involved. This change of dominant strategies is triggered by the corporate group's shifting of the employment factor from high-tax to low-tax Member States. Our paper differs from previous research on the economic effects of the CCCTB apportionment formula as it is the first paper identifying and analysing the employment factor and its distorting effects. The paper discusses possible tax minimizing strategies for corporate groups by shifting workforce and develops a model to quantify these potential relocations. Furthermore the paper presents advice to policy makers in their "Employee" definition decision and shows how Member States could use this definition to both minimize outward factor shifting and maximize inward factor shifting.(authors' abstract) / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series