This paper discusses the main external costs related to road transport and the design of taxes to manage them. It provides an overview of evolving tax practice in the European Union and the United States and identifies opportunities for better alignment of transport taxes with external costs....

Energy affordability can be defined as a household’s ability to pay for necessary levels of energy use within normal spending patterns. This paper uses three indicators to measure energy affordability risk in 20 OECD countries. Energy affordability risk differs widely between countries. The...

In a bold policy effort, Mexico recently moved away from subsidies to transport fuels, increased tax rates on these fuels and introduced a carbon tax. This paper analyses these reforms using a broad set of criteria that consider the main practical dimensions of environmental policy design:...

This paper shows that corporate tax provisions can lead to different effective tax rates (ETRs) if there is a capital cost-intensive and a variable cost-intensive way of producing the same output. It develops a framework for analysing sources of the difference in ETRs and adapts existing models...

The paper collects comprehensive and detailed data on what 40 OECD and G20 economies do with the revenues from carbon taxes, emissions trading systems, and excise taxes on energy use. It notes that constraints – which can take the form of political commitments or legal earmarks – on revenue...

This paper argues that, in situations where choices are made between mutually exclusive investment projects and where there are economic rents, free allocation of tradable emission permits in emissions trading systems can weaken incentives for firms to invest in less carbon-intensive...