This paper explores the trade-off between incentive effects and administrative costs associated with the implementation of various environmental tax instruments, with special reference to carbon taxes. In a simple model, we show under what conditions it is optimal to use input rather than...

The Chinese leadership in November 2013 determined to embark upon a new wave of comprehensive reforms in China. This is clearly reflected by the key decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of Communist Party of China to assign the market a decisive role in allocating...

We take a first look at limitations on the use of energy-related tax credits contained in the General Business Credit (GBC) due to limitations within the regular corporate income tax as well as the AMT. Between 2000 and 2005, firms were unable to use all energy-related tax credits due to GBC...

On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (PL 109-58). This was the first major piece of energy legislation enacted since 1992 following five years of Congressional efforts to pass energy legislation. Among other things, the law contains tax incentives worth over $14...

This paper examines 'traditional' (non-environmental) efficiency consequences and environmental effects of two energy tax policies: a tax on fossil and synthetic fuels based on Btu (or energy) content and a tax on consumer purchases of gasoline. It uses a model that uniquely combines attention...

This paper shows that the output losses from energy taxes are significantly larger than usually computed when due account is taken of imperfect competition among energy using firms. Even with perfect competition among these firms, the loss in GNP is of the same order of magnitude as the revenue...

We model the decision to invest in residential energy conservation capital as an irreversible investment in the face of price uncertainty. The irreversible nature of this investment means that there is a value to waiting to invest (an option value) which helps explain the low rate of...

The behavioral responses to taxes and subsidies are often subject to various behavioral biases and transaction costs--what we define as "microfrictions." We develop a theoretical framework to show how these microfrictions--and their heterogeneity across the population and policy...