The Role of Revenue Recycling Schemes in Environmental Tax Selection : A General Equilibrium Analysis

Timilsina, Govinda R.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    AIR;    AIR POLLUTION;    APPROACH;    ATMOSPHERIC EMISSIONS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4388
RP-ID  :  WPS4388

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This study examines the roles of revenuerecycling schemes for the selection of alternative taxinstruments (i.e., carbon-, sulphur-, energy- andoutput-tax) to reduce CO2 emissions to a specified level inThailand. A static, single period, multi-sectoral computablegeneral equilibrium (CGE) model of the Thai economy has beendeveloped for this purpose. This study finds that theselection of a tax instrument to reduce CO2 emissions wouldbe significantly influenced by the scheme to recycle the taxrevenue to the economy. If the tax revenue is recycled tofinance cuts in the existing labour or indirect tax rates,carbon tax would be more efficient than the sulphur-,energy- and output-taxes to reduce CO2 emissions. On theother hand, if the tax revenue is recycled to householdsthrough a lump-sum transfer, sulphur and carbon taxes wouldbe more efficient than energy and output taxes. The rankingbetween the sulphur and carbon taxes under the lump sumtransfer scheme depends on substitution possibility offossil fuels. Sulphur tax is found superior over carbon taxat the higher substitution possibility between fossil fuels;the reverse is found true at the lower substitutionpossibility. In all schemes of revenue recycling considered,the output tax is found to be the most costly (i.e., inwelfare terms) despite the fact that it generates two tothree times higher revenue than the other tax instruments.