| 摘要 | ��
Research Purpose
This study investigates the efficiency of the various environmental policies, whose objectives are to minimize the social cost of improvement of the environmental quality. In general, environmental policies are categorized into the direct policies and the incentive-based policies. Total emission regulation and technology control are examples of the direct policies. Emission permit trading system and environment tax are examples of incentive-based policies.
Emission permit trading policies are different from one another in initial allocation of the predetermined amount of emission permits; for example auctions and grandfathering based upon the specified criteria.
Environment tax, an indirect policy, is the pigouvian tax, which produces the differentiated effect depending on the preexisting distortion from income tax, corporate tax and value added tax. Recently, there have been a lot of researches to the optimal size of the environmental tax in the second best world. It is argued that the pigouvian tax should be lower in the second best world than in the first best world. The environmental tax with the preexisting tax distortion renders two important effects, i.e. tax interaction effect and revenue recycling effect depending upon the dominance of one effect over the other effect which is the net effect on the economic efficiency and the welfare. Many existing literatures show that tax interaction effect dominates tax recycling effect, resulting in the decrease in welfare. These results suggest the optimal environmental tax should be lower than the Pigouvian tax, which only counts the negative externalities.
In this study a review of the literature on environment tax in the second-best world is performed. Comparisons of the effect on the efficiency and the welfare various environmental policies are made using the CGE(Computable General Equilibrium) model. Based upon the findings a suggestion on the environmental policy is made. This approach differs from the existing studies, which are based upon the partial equilibrium approach.
Summary
With the assumption of the tax neutrality of the environment tax, it causes tax interaction effect and revenue recycling effect once introduced into the second best world. As previously stated, tax interaction effect dominates revenue recycling effect. Emission permit trading system with grandfathering, which generates no additional revenue to the government, has almost same tax interaction effect as environment tax even though it has no revenue recycling effect.
Command and control type environmental policies such as regulation of technology and standard on the emission per unit of fuel used have different effects on the efficiency and the welfare compared to the environment tax. The price effect of the technology-based environmental regulation policy is relatively small, so that tax interaction effect is small while there is no revenue recycling effect. Therefore the social costs of the command and control type environmental policies are higher than those of the environment tax. Fuel tax on the consumption and production of the pollution generating commodity depending upon the amount of the emission fails to give incentive for the introduction of the new technology, which are the suboptimal environmental policies.
This study develops a fully dynamic computable general equilibrium model. Economic agents such as households, firms, and government have perfect foresight and maximize intertemporal utility and profits. Environmental policies induce substitution among energy sources and substitution between outputs from energy saving industry and outputs from non-energy saving industry.
Such taxes as corporate tax, labor income tax, value-added tax, tariff, and import tax are considered in this study. Full consideration of different types of taxes enables this study to examine the tax interaction effects among different types of taxes. Substitution among consumption and production of energy is determined depending upon the degree of substitutability. The substitution among petroleum products is first considered. The substitution between petroleum products and gas is allowed next. The role of the government is to use the revenue from corporate tax, labor income tax, tariff, import tax, value added tax as the form of transfer to government expenditure and income transfer to the households.
In the empirical analysis we examine the substitution effects of fuels as inputs as reflected in the changes in the relative prices of those fuels while the substitution effect of fuels as output is investigated through the change in the relative prices. The tax interaction effect is examined through the changes in the price level and labor supply compared to the baseline. The revenue recycling effect is examined through the change in labor supply and changes in government tax income. The net effects of environmental policies, composite effects of the direct effects and the indirect effects, are assessed through the change in GDP and marginal abatement cost.
Research Results & Policy Suggestions
Marginal abatement cost and GDP loss are the lowest in environment tax among various types of environmental policy tools. Total emission permits with emission permit trading system, regulation on technology, fuel tax follows the environment tax in order. This result reflects the net effects of the primary marginal environmental cost and the secondary marginal environmental cost. Except the regulation on the technology the inducement effect of new technology is the biggest in the total emission regulation, which is followed by environment tax, total emission regulation with emission permit trading.
The fuel prices as inputs and outputs, the price level, and the real wage are determined depending upon the existence of the government tax revenue, which could be used to mitigate the preexisting tax distortion. If the additional tax revenue is used to lower the preexisting tax distortion, the increases in the fuel prices, the price level, and the fuel prices are lowered, resulting in the lowered substitution effects among fuels as inputs and as outputs, and the lowered tax interaction effects. It is shown in our research that these effects are observed stronger in the environment tax and the fuel tax than the other environmental policies.
We also investigate the income distribution effect of the environmental policy employing such indices and Gini's coefficient, Lorenz Curve, equivalent variation among income classes. Income distribution, measured by Gini's coefficient, is improved most when fuel tax is introduced followed by environmental tax, total emission regulation with and without emission permit trading, and regulation on technology in order.
When equivalent variation is employed to measure the income distribution effect of the various environmental policy tools the welfare of the lowest income group decreases most under the regulation on technology and the fuel tax, while decreases least under the total emission regulation. The welfare of all income groups decreases most under the environment tax, followed by the total emission regulation with the emission permit trading, total emission regulation without trading, the fuel tax, and the regulation on technology. When the decrease of the welfare of the upper income groups is bigger than that of the lower income groups and when environmental policy tools are introduced, the income distribution of the economy as a whole gets improved. However more evaluation of the results is needed.
114 pages, 18 refs., 20 figs., 20 tabs., Language: Korean |
