Environmental Taxation in Practice

Adrian Muller is a post-doctoral researcher at the environmental economics unit at Gothenburg University, Sweden, partly funded by the Climate Policy Research Program (Clipore) of the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, Mistra. He currently works on theoretical and empirical analysis of policy instruments for environmental and resource management, with a focus on climate policy. He also collaborates with the Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and the University of Zurich. Thomas Sterner is Professor of environmental economics at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He directs the Environmental Economics Unit, EEU, which specializes in the economics of the environment and natural resource management in both OECD countries and in Developing countries. See http://www.handels.gu.se/econ/EEU/ for further information. He is Chairman of the Board of the Centre for Environmental Economics in Gothenburg. His other board memberships also include the Board of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) of which he is the president elect for 2007-8. He is also a University Fellow at Resources for the Future. His academic publications number around 60 major published articles and books (including over 30 journal articles).

• Contents: Series preface; Introduction. Part I Overview and Comparison of Different Taxes: Environmental taxes in Europe, Thomas Sterner and Gunnar Köhlin; Environmental taxes in developing and transition economies, Randall A. Bluffstone. Part II Institutional Aspects and Political Economy of Implementation: Political economy obstacles to fuel taxation, Henrik Hammar, Ã…sa Löfgren and Thomas Sterner; The Btu tax experience: what happened and why it happened, Dawn Erlandson; Comparative politics and environmental taxation, Per G. Fredriksson and Daniel L. Millimet; Enforcement of environmental charges: some economic aspects and evidence from the German waste water charge, Erik Gawel; Inspections, pollution prices, and environmental performance: evidence from China, Susmita Dasgupta, Benoit Laplante, Nlandu Mamingi and Hua Wang; The distributional implications of higher energy prices for the UK, Michael Common; Public support for pollution fee policies for motor vehicles with revenue recycling: survey results, Alan Krupnik, Winston Harrington and Anna Alberini; Distributional effects of alternative vehicle pollution control policies, Sarah E. West; Cost-effectiveness of air pollution abatement in Poland, Tomasz Zylicz; Environmental policy in transition economies: will pollution charges work?, Patrik Söderholm. Part III Ex-ante Analysis: A presumptive pigovian tax: complementing regulation to mimic an emissions fee, Gunnar S. Eskeland; A deposit-refund system applied to non-point nitrogen emissions from agriculture, Lars GÃ¥rn Hansen; UK's climate change levy: cost effectiveness, competitiveness and environmental impacts, Ardash Varma; The environmental consequences of tax differentiation by vehicle age in Costa Rica, Nick Johnstone, Jaime Echeverrìa, Ina Porres and Ronald Mejìas; The scope for fuel substitution in manufacturing industries: a case study of Chile and Colombia, Diana L. Moss and James R. Tybout; Estimates from a consumer demand system: implications for the incidence of environmental taxes, Sarah E. West and Roberton C. Williams III; An econometric evaluation of sulphur taxes, James M. Griffin; Impact analysis of car-related taxes on fuel consumption in Japan, Masayoshi Tanishita, Shigeru Kashima and William J. Hayes; The cost effectiveness of alternative instruments for environmental protection in a second-best setting, Lawrence H. Goulder, Ian W.H. Parry, Roberton C. Williams III and Dallas Burtraw.Part IV Ex-post Analysis: Motor vehicle taxes as an environmental management instrument: the case of Singapore, Ngee-Choon Chia and Sock-Yong Phang; Equilibrium, pollution and economic development in China, Hua Wang and David Wheeler; Household responses to pricing garbage by the bag, Don Fullerton and Thomas C. Kinnaman; Garbage and recycling with endogenous local policy, Thomas C. Kinnaman and Don Fullerton; State taxes and interstate hazardous waste shipments, Arik Levinson; The phase-out of leaded gasoline in the EU: a successful failure?, Ã…sa Löfren and Henrik Hammar; Greenhouse gas emissions in Norway: do carbon taxes work?, Annegrete Bruvoll and Bodil Merethe Laesen; Name index.

'...shows the range and nature of the issues to be considered if environmental taxation is to be an effective part of our "toolkit" in fighting serious environmental change.' SCOLAG journal 'make[s] a significant contribution to the growing field of literature on environmental taxation.' -British Tax Review, 2007