After Swedish alcohol retail monopoly, Systembolaget, changed the taxation for alcohol sold in retail stores according to its absolute alcohol content in 1992, Ponicki et al. (1997) used this opportunity to examine the effect of per-unit alcohol tax on the prices of spirits, comparing before and after, and found that beverages from higher price range experienced a relatively smaller rise in price in percentage terms than the beverages from lower price range, which can be described as compression of prices. This paper builds on the statement and findings by Ponicki et al. in 1997 and looks at whether or not unit taxes on ethanol content, as opposed to ad valorem taxes, compress the price range and make low quality wines relatively more expensive after-tax in Sweden as compared to no alcohol-content taxation. For the purposes of comparison German wine market is selected due to its market specifics (no per-unit taxes on wine), geographical proximity and availability of wide range data. The perception that the Swedish Pigouvi-an alcohol content tax should make wines in low price ranges relatively more expensive than its pre-tax price and in high ranges relatively cheaper (Kronstam, B.-G., 2010) did not receive thorough support in this paper.

本文以 Oates and Schwab (1988) 及 Lockwood (2004) 兩篇文章為基礎。採用 Oates and Schwab (1988) 中各地方政府同時選擇資本稅率及環境標準的模型為主要架構，並結合 Lockwood (2004) 中從量及從價資本稅之相關設定，將公共財及環境品質納入代表性個人的效用函數中，求得對稱納許均衡解 (symmetric Nash equilibrium) 。我們發現在考慮地區間策略性行為 (strategic behavior) 時，不論地區採用從量或從價資本稅以融通地區性公共財，均衡稅率及環境品質皆會低於最適水準，其中又以從價資本稅的扭曲更為嚴重。而中央集權時，無論採用從量或從價稅制，均衡稅率及環境品質皆為最適水準；完全地方分權時，從量稅和從價稅兩者等價，各區間彼此競爭，不論在公共財或環境水準， 都有向下沉淪 (race to the bottom) ，偏離最適解的結果。 / The thesis is based on the setting of Oates and Schwab (1988) and Lockwood (2004). I consider that each local government has two policy instruments available: the capital tax and the environmental standard. Local governments levy tax on the capital of polluting industries, with either unit taxes or ad valorem taxes.All capital tax revenues are used to provide local public goods. The aim of the thesis is to examine whether the two distinct capital tax systems lead to different outcomes. I find that when strategic behavior among jurisdictions is considered, both the tax rates and the environmental standards are set below the optimal levels under the two tax systems. Compared to the unit tax case, it's even more inefficient with the ad valorem tax. Another finding is that the government would set both tax rate and environmental standard at the optimal level under the centralized case. Contrarily, under the decentralized cases, the competition among jurisdictions will lead to a race to the bottom in both local public goods provision and environment policy. Unit taxes and ad valorem taxes are equivalent in these two special cases.