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Abstract:
This paper provides a broad overview of recent trends in solid waste and recycling, related public policy issues, and the economics literature devoted to these topics. Public attention to solid waste and recycling has increased dramatically over the past decade both in the United States and in Europe. In response, economists have developed models to help policy makers choose the efficient mix of policy levers to regulate solid waste and recycling activities. Economists have also employed different kinds of data to estimate the factors that contribute to the generation of residential solid waste and recycling and to estimate the effectiveness of many of the policy options employed.

Abstract:
This chapter reviews the concepts, methods, and results of studies that analyze the incidence of taxes. The purpose of such studies is to determine how the burden of a particular tax is allocated among consumers through higher product prices, workers through a lower wage rate, or other factors of production through lower rates of return to those factors. The methods might involve simple partial equilibrium models, analytical general equilibrium models, or computable general equilibrium models.

We review partial equilibrium models, where the burden of a tax is shown to depend on the elasticity of supply relative to the elasticity of demand. In particular, we consider partial equilibrium models with imperfect competition. Turning to a general equilibrium setting, we review the classic model of Harberger (1962) and illustrate its generality by applying it to a number of different contexts. We also use this model to demonstrate the practicality of analytical general equilibrium modeling through the use of log linearization techniques.

We then turn to dynamic models to show how a tax on capital affects capital accumulation, future wage rates, and overall burdens. Such models might also provide analytical results or computational results. We also focus on relatively recent models that calculate the lifetime incidence of taxes, with both intratemporal and intertemporal redistribution. Finally, the chapter reviews the use of incidence methods and results in the policy process.

Abstract:
Building on the existing literature that examines the extent of redistribution in the Social Security system as a whole, this paper focuses more specifically on how Social Security affects the poor. This question is important because a Social Security program that reduces overall inequality by redistributing from high income individuals to middle income individuals may do nothing to help the poor; conversely, a program that redistributes to the poor may nonetheless be regressive according to broader measures if it also redistributes from middle to upper income households. We have four major findings. First, as we expand the definition of income to use more comprehensive measures of well-being, we find that Social Security becomes less progressive. Indeed, when we use an "endowment" defined by potential labor earnings at the household level, rather than actual earnings at the individual level, we find that Social Security has virtually no effect on overall inequality. Second, we find that this result is driven largely by the lack of redistribution across the middle and upper part of the income distribution, so it masks some small positive net transfers to those at the bottom of the lifetime income distribution. Third, in cases where redistribution does occur, we find it is not efficiently targeted: many high income households receive positive net transfers, while many low income households pay net taxes. Finally, the redistributive effects of Social Security change over time, and these changes depend on the income concept used to classify someone as "poor".

Abstract:
This paper summarizes important developments in tax incidence analysis over the past forty years. We mark the date of the beginning of modern tax incidence analysis with the publication of Harberger (1962) and discuss the relation of subsequent work to this seminal paper.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
This paper builds a single model that can be used to show efficiency and distributional effects of eight different types of environmental policies (including taxes, subsidies, regulations, permits, and legal liability). All eight approaches can be designed to have the same efficiency effects, even while they have different distributional effects. For further evaluation of these policies, the paper discusses other criteria outside the simple model (including administrative efficiency, enforcement capabilities, and political feasibility). The paper ends with a discussion of likely trade-offs among these often-competing objectives of environmental policy.

Abstract:
This working paper presents Chapter 2 of a book that has been submitted to the University of Chicago Press for publication consideration. The point of the book is to compare taxes on income from capital infour countries,accounting for corporate, personal, and property taxes, and including national, regional, and local level taxes. We describe statutory tax ratesand other tax rules in each country, and calculate overall effective marginal tax rates for different combinations of asset, industry, source of finance,and ownership categories.This chapter defines the methodological problems of estimating effective tax rates on income from capital, and it defines the limits of this analysisby pointing out areas that are excluded by this study. It sets out the parameters that need to be estimated for each country, and describes other data requirements involving the amount of each capital asset located in each industry, financed by each source, and owned by each ownership category.

Abstract:
This working paper presents Chapter 7 of a book to be published for the National Bureau of Economic Research by the University of Chicago Press. The point of the book is to compare taxes on income from capital in four countries,accounting for corporate, personal, and property taxes, and including national,regional, and local level taxes. We describe statutory tax rates and other tax rules in each country and calculate overall effective marginal tax ratesfor different combinations of asset, industry, source of finance, and ownership categories.This chapter compares effective tax rates in the four countries for different assets, industries, sources of finance, and ownership categories.Differences in overall effective tax rates among countries are attributed to differences in rates of inflation, actual depreciation,tax parameters, or differences in the amount of capital in each combination.For each country,we plot the effect of inflation on overall tax rates, and we plot the distribution of different effective tax rates at a given rate of inflation. We further investigate the sensitivity of results to assumptions about inflation and interest rates.

Abstract:
This paper uses an estimated demand system that accounts for heterogeneity to calculate and compare the lost consumer surplus from a higher tax on gasoline, a tax on distance, or a subsidy for buying a newer car. We introduce a view of cost-effectiveness that compares policies instead of technologies. Each tax might induce some consumers to drive less, some to switch from two vehicles to one, and some to buy a car instead of an SUV. Our model captures these behaviors. For each rate of tax, we simulate the changes in all such choices and how the new choices affect emissions. We also calculate the equivalent variation and subtract tax revenue to get deadweight loss. Finally, we take the added deadweight loss over the additional abatement as the social marginal cost of abatement, and we plot this curve for several different tax policies.

Abstract:
In estimating the effects of capital income taxation, different studies measure different effective tax rates. This paper categorizes effective tax rate estimates into six basic types, and discusses the usefulness of each. For marginal effective tax rates, some studies estimate the additional taxes associated with a marginal increase in the inflation and interest rates, while others estimate the additional taxes associated with a marginal increase in investment. Because there are six basic types of rates, because of the different procedures that can be used to estimate each type, and because of different assumptions about the margin, care should be taken in the application and use of effective tax rate estimates.

Abstract:
How much does the current social security system really redistribute from rich to poor? We use the PSID to estimate lifetime wage profiles and actual earnings each year for a sample of 1778 individuals, and we use mortality probabilities to calculate expected payroll taxes and social security benefits. For a given set of facts' about the net flows received by each individual, measured progressivity depends on many assumptions. This paper attempts to capture and to quantify all of the individual characteristics that are relevant to determine the progressivity of a life-cycle program like social security.

We proceed in seven steps. First, we classify individuals by annual income and use Gini coefficients to find that social security is highly progressive. Second, we reclassify individuals on the basis of lifetime income and find that social security is less progressive. Third, we remove the cap on measured earnings and find that social security is even less progressive. Fourth, we switch from actual to potential lifetime earnings (the present value of the wage rate times 4000 hours each year). This measure captures the value of leisure and home production, so those out of the labor force are less poor, and net payments to them are less progressive. Fifth, we assign to each married individual half of the couple's income. The low-wage spouse is then not so poor less progressive. Sixth, we incorporate mortality probabilities that differ by potential lifetime income. Since the rich live longer and collect benefits longer, social security is no longer progressive. Finally, we increase the discount rate from 2% to 4%, which puts relatively more weight on the earlier-but-regressive payroll tax and less weight on the later-but-progressive benefit schedule. The whole social security system is then regressive.

Abstract:
This paper estimates the impact of a user fee and a curbside recycling program on garbage and recycling amounts, allowing for the possibility of endogenous policy choices. Previous estimates of the effects of these policies could be biased if unobserved variables such as local preference for the environment jointly impact the probability of implementing these policies and the levels of garbage and recycling collected in the community. A simple sequential model of local policymaking is estimated using original data gathered from a large cross-section of communities with user fees, combined with an even larger cross-section of towns without user fees but with and without curbside recycling programs. The combined data set is larger and more comprehensive than any used in previous studies. Without correction for endogenous policy, the price per unit of garbage collection has a negative effect on garbage and a positive cross-price effect on recycling. When we correct for endogenous policy, then the effect of the user fee on garbage increases, and the significance of the cross-price effect on recycling disappears.

Abstract:
The double-dividend hypothesis' suggests that increased taxes on polluting activities can provide two kinds of benefits. The first is an improvement in the environment, and the second is an improvement in economic efficiency from the use of environmental tax revenues to reduce other taxes such as income taxes that distort labor supply and saving decisions. In this paper, we make four main points. First, the validity of the double-dividend hypothesis cannot logically be settled as a general matter. Second, the focus on revenue in this literature is misplaced. We demonstrate that three policies have equivalent impacts on the environment and on labor supply. One of those policies raises revenue from the environmental component of the reform, another loses revenue, and a third has no revenue associated with it. Third, what matters is the creation of privately-held scarcity rents. Policies that raise product prices through some restriction on behavior may create scarcity rents. Unless those rents are captured by the government, such policies are less efficient at ameliorating an environmental problem than are policies that do not create rents. Finally, we distinguish between two types of command and control regulations on the basis of whether they create scarcity rents.

Abstract:
Despite technological advances, an individual car's emissions still cannot be measured reliably enough to impose a Pigovian tax. This paper explores alternative market incentives that could be used instead. We solve for second-best combinations of uniform taxes on gasoline, engine size, and vehicle age. For 1,261 individuals and cars in the 1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey, we record the car's model, year, and number of cylinders. We then seek a corresponding car in data from the California Air Resources Board that shows the car's engine size, fuel efficiency, and emissions per mile. We calculate the welfare improvement from a zero-tax scenario to the ideal Pigovian tax, and we find that 71 percent of that gain can be achieved by the second-best combination of taxes on gas, size, and vintage. A gas tax alone attains 62 percent of that gain. These results are robust to variation in the elasticity of substitution among goods.

Abstract:
Mobile sources contribute large percentages of each pollutant, but technology is not yet available to measure and tax emissions from each vehicle. We build a behavioral model of household choices about vehicles and miles traveled. The ideal-but-unavailable emissions tax would encourage drivers to abate emissions through many behaviors, some of which involve market transactions that can be observed for feasible market incentives (such as a gas tax, subsidy to new cars, or tax by vehicle type). Our model can calculate behavioral effects of each such price and thus calculate car choices, miles, and emissions. A nested logit structure is used to model discrete choices among different vehicle bundles. We also consider continuous choices of miles driven and the age of each vehicle. We propose a consistent estimation method for both discrete and continuous demands in one step, to capture the interactive effects of simultaneous decisions. Results are compared with those of the traditional sequential estimation procedure.

Abstract:
We explore the effects of environmental taxes that imprecisely target pollution. A review of actual policies indicates few (if any) examples of a true tax on pollution. More typically, environmental taxes target an input or output that is correlated with pollution. We construct a simple analytical general equilibrium model to calculate the optimum tax rate on the input of the polluting industry, in terms of key behavioral parameters, and we compare this imprecisely-targeted tax to an ideal tax on pollution. Finally, we consider incremental tax reforms such as a change in either tax from some pre-existing level. Using a utility-based money-metric measure of welfare, we examine the losses that arise from not taxing pollution directly. With no existing tax, under our plausible parameters, the welfare gain from an output tax is less that half the gain from an emissions tax.

Abstract:
This paper suggests two generalizations of the deposit-refund idea. In the first, we apply the idea not just to solid waste materials, but to any waste from production or consumption including wastes that may be solid, gaseous, or liquid. Using a simple general equilibrium model, we derive the optimal combination of a tax on a purchased commodity and subsidy to a clean' activity (such as emission abatement, recycling, or disposal in a sanitary landfill). This two-part instrument' is equivalent to a Pigovian tax on the dirty' activity (such as emissions, dumping, or litter). In the second generalization, we consider the case where government must use distorting taxes on labor and capital incomes. To help meet the revenue requirement, would the optimal deposit be raised and the refund reduced? We derive the second-best revenue-raising DRS or two-part instrument to answer that question.

Abstract:
This paper builds two simple general equilibrium models to demonstrate the equivalence between the Pigovian tax and the combination of a presumptive tax and an environmental subsidy. A presumptive tax is a tax that is imposed under the presumption that all production uses a dirty technology or all consumption goods become waste. The environmental subsidy is then provided only to the extent that production uses a cleaner technology or that consumption goods are recycled. To analyze the usefulness of the tax-subsidy combination, we review conceptual considerations regarding its implementation and practical considerations regarding its actual use throughout the world. While the tax-subsidy combination is increasingly being used, in the form of a deposit-refund system, we argue that more flexible interpretations are important to explore. The two parts of such a policy do not have to apply to the same side of the market. The tax and subsidy do not have to equal one another, and they can apply to different goods altogether. Compared to the Pigovian tax, a two-part instrument may be easier to enforce, may be easier to enact, and can still force the market to recognize the social cost of disposal.

Abstract:
In this paper we assess the degree to which the current social security system redistributes income from rich to poor. We then estimate the impact of various proposed changes to social security on the overall redistributive effect of the system. Our analysis takes a steady state approach in which we assume participants work their entire lives and retire under a given system. Redistribution is measured on a lifetime basis using estimated earnings profiles for a sample of people taken from the PSID. We account for differential mortality, not only by gender and race, but also be lifetime income. Our results indicate that the current social security system redistributes less than is generally perceived, mainly because people with higher lifetime income live longer and therefore draw benefits longer. Remaining progressivity is reduced and even reversed by an increase in the assumed discount rate, since regressive taxes become more important relative to later progressive benefits. We find that many of the proposed changes to social security have surprising little effect on the redistribution inherent in the system.

Abstract:
This paper develops a utility maximizing model of household choice among garbage disposal, recycling, and littering. The impact of a user fee for garbage collection is modelled for heterogeneous households with different preferences for recycling. The model explains (1) why some households participate in curbside recycling programs even in the absence of a user fee, (2) why other households do not participate, even in the presence of a user fee, and (3) why some households choose to litter when others do not. Household choices are aggregated to determine the effect of a user fee on the community-wide quantities of garbage, recycling, and litter. We show how an increase in the user fee can decrease aggregate recycling.

Abstract:
Debate about the Double Dividend Hypothesis has focused on whether an environmental policy raises revenue that can be used to cut other distorting taxes. In this paper, we show that this focus is misplaced. We derive welfare results for alternative policies in a series of analytical general equilibrium models with clean and dirty goods that might be produced using emissions as well as other resources, in the presence of other pre-existing distortions such as labor taxes or even monopoly pricing. We show that the same welfare effects of environmental protection can be achieved, without exacerbating the labor distortion, by taxes that raise revenue, certain command and control regulations that raise no revenue, and even subsidies that cost revenue. Instead, the pre-existing labor tax distortion is exacerbated by policies that generate privately-retained scarcity rents. These rents raise the cost of production, raise equilibrium output prices, and thus reduce the real net wage. Such policies include both quantity-restricting command and control policies and certain marketable permit policies.

Abstract:
We study the distributional effects of a pollution tax in general equilibrium, with general forms of substitution where pollution might be a relative complement or substitute for labor or for capital in production. We find closed form solutions for pollution, output prices, and factor prices. Various special cases help clarify the impact of differential factor intensities, substitution effects, and output effects. Intuitively, the pollution tax might place disproportionate burdens on capital if the polluting sector is capital intensive, or if labor is a better substitute for pollution than is capital; however, conditions are found where these intuitive results do not hold. We show exact conditions for the wage to rise relative to the capital return. Plausible values are then assigned to all the parameters, and we find that variations over the possible range of factor intensities have less impact than variations over the possible range of elasticities.

Abstract:
We extend an analytical general equilibrium model of environmental policy with pre-existing labor tax distortions to include pre-existing monopoly power as well. We show that the existence of monopoly power has two offsetting effects on welfare. First, the environmental policy reduces monopoly profits, and the negative effect on income increases labor supply in a way that partially offsets the pre-existing labor supply distortion. Second, environmental policy raises prices, so interaction with the pre-existing monopoly distortion further exacerbates the labor supply distortion. This second effect is larger, for reasonable parameter values, so the existence of monopoly reduces the welfare gain (or increases the loss) from environmental restrictions.

Abstract:
This paper estimates household reaction to the implementation of unit-pricing for the collection of residential garbage. We gather original data on weight and volume of weekly garbage and recycling of 75 households in Charlottesville, Virginia, both before and after the start of a program that requires an eighty-cent sticker on each bag of garbage. This data set is the first of its kind. We estimate household demands for the collection of garbage and recyclable material, the effect on density of household garbage, and the amount of illegal dumping by households. We also estimate the probability that a household chooses each method available to reduce its garbage. In response to the implementation of this unit-pricing program, we find that households (1) reduced the weight of their garbage by 14%, (2) reduced the volume of garbage by 37% and (3) increased the weight of their recyclable materials by 16%. We estimate that additional illegal -- or at least suspicious -- disposal accounts for 0.42 pounds per person per week, or 28% of the reduction in garbage observed at the curb.

Abstract:
This paper uses a lifetime framework to address questions about the progressivity of social security and proposed reforms. We use a large sample of diverse individuals from the PSID to calculate lifetime income, to classify individuals into income quintiles, and then to calculate the present value of taxes minus benefits for each person in each group. In our basic calculations, the current system is slightly progressive, overall, on a lifetime basis. Social Security would become slightly more progressive in one of the reform plans, and it would become slightly regressive in each of the other plans. The pattern of progressivity is affected by alternative assumptions, but it is affected in similar ways for the current system and proposed reforms. None of these reforms greatly alters the current degree of progressivity on a lifetime basis.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
The standard theory that the first-best tax on pollution is equal to marginal environmental damages has been extended in two directions. First, many polluting activities are difficult to tax because they are not market transactions, and so recent papers have shown that the same effects can be achieved by use of a two-part instrument - a tax on one market transaction such as output or income and a subsidy to a different market transaction that is a clean alternative to pollution. It is a generalization of a deposit-refund system. Second, a different literature concerns the second-best optimal pollution tax in the presence of other tax distortions. Here, we combine the two extensions by looking at the second-best two-part instrument (2PI). When government needs revenue, is the deposit larger and the rebate smaller? We find explicit solutions for each tax and subsidy in a general equilibrium model with other tax distortions, and we compare these to the rates in a first-best model. The tax-subsidy combination is explained in terms of a tax effect, an environmental effect, and a revenue effect. The model allows for flexible interpretation, to show various applications of the 2PI. We also discuss important caveats, cases where the 2PI may not be appropriate.

Abstract:
The efficiency cost of capital misallocations between the corporate sector and the noncorporate sector is typically measured using statutory tax differences. Corporate-source income tax compliance is high because of third party reporting, however, while noncorporate rental income tax compliance is low. Differential evasion thus exacerbates statutory differences and enlarges the efficiency cost. To measure this effect, we build a numerical general equilibrium model where households simultaneously choose portfolios of risky assets and fractions of income to report.

Abstract:
Tax rules have changed almost yearly in the United States since 1980. In particular, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 reduced marginal tax rates and shortened depreciation lifetimes, while the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced marginal tax rates, repealed the investment tax credit, and lengthened depreciation lifetimes.

Abstract:
A tax on vehicle emissions can efficiently induce all of the cheapest forms of abatement. Consumers could drive less, buy a smaller car with better gas mileage, use cleaner gasoline, and repair pollution control equipment (PCE). However, the technology is not yet available to measure and tax each car's total emissions. We thus investigate alternative instruments. In a simple model with identical consumers, we show conditions under which the same efficiency can be attained by the combination of a tax on gas, a tax on engine size , and a subsidy to PCE. In a model with heterogeneous consumers, the same efficiency can again be obtained, but only if each person's gasoline tax rate can be made to depend on the characteristics of the car. We solve for these first-best tax rates. Assuming that tax rates must be uniform across consumers, we then characterize second-best tax rates on gasoline and on characteristics.

Abstract:
This paper presents estimates of static and dynamic general equilibrium resource allocation effects for four alternative plans for corporate and personal income tax integration in the U.S. A mediumscale numerical general equilibrium model is used which integrates the U.S. tax system with consumer demand behavior by household and producer behavior by industry. Results indicate that total integration of personal and corporate taxes would yield an annual static efficiency gain of around $4 billion (1973 dollars). Partial integration plans yield less. Dynamic effects are larger, and our analysis indicates that full integration may yield gains whose present value is as large as $400 billion or 0.8% of the discounted present value of the GNP stream to the U.S. economy after correction for population growth. Plans differ in their distributional impacts, although these findings depend on the nature of replacement taxes used to preserve government revenues. The size of dynamic resource allocation effects are sensitive to the choice of the replacement tax, while static gains are reasonably robust.

Abstract:
We analyze alternative policies such as a disposal content fee, a subsidy for recyclable designs, unit pricing of household disposal, a deposit-refund system, and a manufacturer `take-back' requirement. In order to identify the problem being addressed, we build a simple general equilibrium model in which household utility depends on a negative externality from total waste generation, and in which firms use primary and recycled inputs to produce output that has two `attributes': packaging per unit output, and recyclability. If households pay the social cost of disposal, then they send the right signals to producers to reduce packaging and to design products that can more easily be recycled. But if local governments are constrained to collect household garbage for free, then households do not send the right signals to producers. The socially optimal attributes can still be achieved by a tax on producers' use of packaging and subsidy to producers' use of recyclable designs.

Abstract:
Electric utilities can reduce sulfur dioxide emissions through a variety of strategies such as adding scrubbers, switching to low- sulfur coal, or shifting output between generating plants with different emissions. The cost of achieving a given emission target can be minimized using a market for emission allowances, as under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, if firms with high abatement costs buy allowances while those with low abatement costs reduce emissions and sell allowances. However, public utility commissions regulate which costs can be passed to customers. Previous theoretical work has analyzed effects of regulations on a utility's choice between permits and a single continuous `abatement technology.' Here, we consider three abatement technologies and the discrete choices among them. Our numerical model uses market and engineering information on permit prices, scrubber cost and sulfur removal efficiency, alternative fuel costs and sulfur content, plus generating plant costs and efficiency. Using illustrative sets of parameters, we find that regulatory rules could more than double the cost of sulfur dioxide compliance.

Abstract:
Alternative corporate tax systems differ in their ability to adapt to changes in the rate of inflation. Absent complete indexing of depreciation allowances, a tax system may use the expected inflation rate to set accelerated depreciation allowances in a way that minimizes the welfare loss from them is allocation of capital. This welfare loss is a nonlinear function of the assumed inflation rate, however, so the welfare loss at the expected inflation rate may be quite different from the expected welfare loss. We compute these two welfare concepts for each of three alternative corporate tax schemes in the U.S. and for two different relationships between inflation and interest rates. One important finding is that the Auerbach-Jorgenson first year recovery plan is not equivalent to indexing as is often claimed, if uncertainty about inflation implies uncertainty about the real after-tax discount rate.

Abstract:
Marginal excess burden, defined as the change in deadweight loss for an additional dollar of tax revenue, has been measured for labor taxes, output taxes, and capital taxes generally. This paper points out that there is no we1 1-defined way to raise capital taxes in general, because the taxation of income from capital depends on many different policy instruments including the statutory corporate income tax rate, the investment tax credit rate, depreciation lifetimes, declining balance rates for depreciation allowances, and personal tax rates on noncorporate income, interest receipts, dividends, and capital gains. Marginal excess burden is measured for each of these different capital tax instruments, using a general equilibrium model that encompasses distortions in the allocation of real resources over time, among industries, between the corporate and noncorporate sectors, and among diverse types of equipment, structures, inventories, and land. Although numerical results are sensitive to specifications for key substitution elasticity parameters, important qualitative results are not. We find that an increase in the corporate rate has the highest marginal excess burden, because it distorts intersectoral and interasset decisions as well as intertemporal decisions. At the other extreme, an investment tax credit reduction has negative marginal excess burden because it raises revenue while reducing interasset distortions more than it increases intertemporal distortions. In general, we find that marginal excess burdens of different capital tax instruments vary significantly. They can be more or less than the marginal excess burden of the payroll tax or the progressive personal income tax.

Abstract:
Graduated income tax rates and transfer programs create piecewise-linear budget constraints that consist of budget segments and kink points. With any change in these tax rules, each individual may switch between a kink point and a budget segment, between two budget segments, or between two kink points. With errors in the estimated labor supply equation, the new choice is uncertain, and so the welfare effects of a tax change are uncertain. We propose a simulation-based method to compute expected welfare effects that is easy to implement and that fully accounts for uncertainties about choices around kink points. Our method also provides information about expected changes in working hours.

Abstract:
When government needs more revenue than is available from a pollution tax rate equal to marginal environmental damage, our intuition tells us to raise the tax on the clean good above zero and to raise the tax on the dirty good above that first-best Pigouvian rate. Yet new results suggest that the second-best pollution tax is below the Pigouvian rate. This note reconciles these views by pointing out that these new results use a labor tax to acquire additional revenue, and that the labor tax is equivalent to a uniform tax on both clean and dirty goods. Thus, depending on the normalization, the total tax on the dirty good can be above the Pigouvian rate. These recent results are meant to show that the difference between the tax on the dirty good and the tax on the clean good is less than the Pigouvian rate. Any one tax rate can be set to zero as a conceptual matter, but implementation of some taxes might be easier than others as a practical matter.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
Because of difficulties measuring pollution, many prior papers suggest a subsidy to some observable method of reducing pollution. We take three papers from the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management as examples, and we extend them to make an additional important point. In each case, we show that welfare under the suggested subsidy can be increased by the addition of an output tax. While the suggested subsidy reduces damage per unit of output, it also decreases the firm's cost of production and the equilibrium break-even price. It might therefore increase output - unless combined with an output tax. Using one example, we show that a properly-constructed subsidy-tax combination is equivalent to a Pigovian tax. Another example is a computational model, used to show that the subsidy-tax combination can yield a welfare gain that is more than three times the gain from using the subsidy alone. The third example is a theoretical model, used to show that the subsidy alone increases production and thus could increase total pollution. An additional output tax offsets this increase in production.

Abstract:
Fundamental tax reform may change relative prices of consumption goods and may therefore have important effects on the uses side that are ignored by most general equilibrium simulation models. For a uniform rate of tax, in our model, results on the uses side are driven by the nonuniform tax system being replaced. Similar effects occur under any uniform and comprehensive tax reform, whether the current system is replaced by a consumption tax, a wage tax, or a pure income tax. Any such reform that eliminates the current preferential treatment of housing would impose an additional one-time levy on the elderly, and any reform that eliminates the current double taxation of corporate capital would reduce the relative prices of corporate-capital-intensive goods bought by the poor.

Abstract:
Each environmental tax in the U.S. is designed to collect revenue for a trust fund used to clean up a particular pollution problem. Each might be intended to collect from a particular industry thought to be responsible for that pollution problem, but none represents a good example of an incentive-based tax designed to discourage the polluting activity itself. A different tax for each trust fund means that each tax rate is typically less than one percent. But each separate tax has an extra cost of administration and compliance, since taxpayers must read another set of rules and fill out another set of forms. This paper provides evidence on compliance costs that are high relative to the small revenue from each separate tax. In addition, an input-output model is used to show how current U.S. environmental tax burdens are passed from taxed industries to all other industries. Thus the extra cost incurred to administer each separate tax achieves neither targeted incentives not targeted burdens.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
A cost of capital formula can be a useful tool in estimating the effective tax rate on a dollar of marginal investment in a particular industry. There are a number of procedural issues, however, which can greatly affect the resulting estimates. First, tax rate estimates vary with the interest rate used in the formula. Second, the nonlinearity of tax rate formulas may lead to anomalous results. For example, an investment that is actually subsidized may appear to bear a positive tax. Or, tax rates may become arbitrarily large when the project`s rate of return approaches zero. Third, effective tax rate results depend on the assumed relationship between inflation and nominal interest rates. Our conclusion is that much sensitivity analysis and specificity are required in studies that undertake to estimate effective tax rates.

Abstract:
General equilibrium models have recently been used to simulate the effects of many proposed tax changes. However, in modeling the effects of the government on the economy, these models have assumed for simplicity that marginal tax rates equal the observed average tax rates, and that marginal benefit rates are zero. The main purpose of this paper is to derive improved estimates of various marginal tax and benefit rates. Most importantly, we include in the model recent theories concerning the effects of combined corporate and personal taxes on corporate financial and investment decisions. The conclusions previously derived concerning the effects of corporate tax integration are then reexamined in light of the proposed changes.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
We examine six alternative plans which might be discussed in an effort to increase consumer savings through the personal income tax system in the United States. These plans attempt to affect savings through an increase in the real rate of return either by direct tax cuts on savings or by indexing tax rates against inflation. The paper presents estimates of static and dynamic resource allocation effects for the six plans, and compares them to results obtained in earlier work on the impacts of more sweeping reforms. A medium-scale numerical general equilibrium model is used which integrates the U. S. tax system with consumer demand behavior by household and producer behavior by industry.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
When tax rates vary by asset, a "hidden" industrial policy may aid industries that invest in a certain mix of assets. In this paper, we examine whether differential use of depreciable assets gives rise to differential tax treatment of high technology industries relative to other industries. First, we calculate the total effective tax rate on a marginal investment in each of 34 assets. Next, using these asset-specific tax rates and weighting by the use of these assets in each of 73 different industries, we calculate total effective tax rates at the industry level. We find considerable variation within the high-tech sector and within the more traditional sector, but for the case of a taxable firm with a given debt/equity ratio, we do not find any systematic differences between overall rates in the two sectors.

Abstract:
Many studies measure capital stocks and effective tax rates for different industries, but they consider only tangible assets such as equipment, structures, inventories, and land. Some of these studies also have estimated that the welfare cost of tax differences among these assets under prior law is about $10 billion per year or 13 percent of all corporate income tax revenue. Since the investment tax credit was available only for equipment, its repeal raises the effective rate of taxation of equipment toward that of other assets and virtually eliminates this welfare cost. However, firms also own intangible assets such as trademarks, copyrights, patents, a good reputation, or general production expertise. This paper provides alternative measures of the intangible capital stock, and it investigates implications for distortions caused by taxes. The existence of intangible capital markedly alters welfare cost calculations. Investments in advertising and R&D are expensed, so the effective rate of tax on these assets is less than that on equipment under prior law. With large differences between these assets and other tangible assets, we find that the welfare cost measure under prior law increases to $13 billion per year. Repeal of the investment credit taxes equipment more like other tangible assets but less like intangible assets. The welfare cost still falls, to about $7 billion per year, but it is no longer "virtually eliminated." With additional sources of intangible capital, credit repeal could actually increase welfare costs. Finally, however, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 not only repeals the investment tax credit but reduces rates as well. Efficiency always increases in this model because the taxation of tangible assets is reduced toward that of intangible assets.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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This chapter provides an overview of key economic issues in the use of taxation as an instrument of environmental policy in the UK. It first reviews economic arguments for using taxes and other market mechanisms in environmental policy, discusses the choice of tax base, and considers the value of the revenue from environmental taxes. It is argued that environmental tax revenues do not significantly alter economic constraints on tax policy, and that environmental taxes need to be justified primarily by the cost-effective achievement of environmental goals. The chapter then assesses key areas where environmental taxes appear to have significant potential - including taxes on energy used by industry and households, road transport, aviation, and waste. In some of these areas, efficient environmental tax design needs to make use of a number of taxes in combination - a multi-part instrument.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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This chapter reviews literature on the distributional effects of environmental and energy policy. In particular, many effects of such policy are likely regressive. First, it raises the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products, expenditures on which are a high fraction of low-income budgets. Second, if abatement technologies are capital-intensive, then any mandate to abate pollution may induce firms to use more capital. If demand for capital is raised relative to labor, then a lower relative wage may also hurt low-income households. Third, pollution permits handed out to firms bestow scarcity rents on well-off individuals who own those firms. Fourth, low-income individuals may place more value on food and shelter than on incremental improvements in environmental quality. If high-income individuals get the most benefit of pollution abatement, then this effect is regressive as well. Fifth, low-income renters miss out on house price capitalization of air quality benefits. Well-off landlords may reap those gains. Sixth, transition effects could well hurt the unemployed who are already at some disadvantage. These six effects might all hurt the poor more than the rich. This paper discusses whether these fears are valid, and whether anything can be done about them.

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Recent studies consider public R&D spending that affects abatement knowledge and endogenous growth, distortionary taxes that affect physical and human capital formation, pollution taxes that affect environmental degradation, and regeneration that restores natural capital. Our model combines all of those elements. We show how the combination affects results from each prior model, focusing on two parameters that represent the need for distorting taxes, and the productivity of abatement knowledge relative to pollution. First, either of these two extensions can reverse the prior finding that pollution tax revenue is more than enough to pay for public abatement R&D. Second, tax distortions and externalities substantially alter prior findings that the ratio of public to private capital is based only on output elasticities. Third, our dynamic model affects prior static findings about how other public spending crowds out provision of the environmental public good. Fourth, we show whether a greater need for public spending leads to greater increases in the distorting tax or pollution tax. Fifth, while prior research is optimistic that environmental regulation can boost economic growth, we show how it may increase or decrease the growth rate - even if it raises welfare.

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In this paper, we evaluate existing tax law as of 1980, President Reagan`s tax reform initiatives as enacted in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) and the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), as well as other proposals that were not enacted. For each law, we measure marginal effective total tax rates for capital in the corporate sector, the noncorporate sector, and the owner-occupied housing sector. These rates include taxation under the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, and property taxes, in order to capture the full distortion of individuals` choices between present and future consumption as well as the distortions in the choice of investment. Effective tax rates in 1980 were perceived as high in the corporate sector, at least partly because of inflation, and especially when compared to the tax-free treatment of imputed rents from owner-occupied housing. In contrast, we find that (1) the total effective tax rate in the corporate sector was only 35 percent, about half of the rate in some previous estimates; (2) the total effective tax in the noncorporate sector was 36 percent, higher than in the corporate sector; (3) the total effective tax in owner-occupied housing was 19 percent, because of a higher relative property tax rate; and (4) under either 1980 or 1982 law, the marginal effective total tax rate does not rise with inflation in any sector or for the economy as a whole. By 1982 the rate in the corporate sector fell to 30 percent, by more than in other sectors.

Abstract:
Comparative static models typically assume homogenous and mobile factors in estimating the economic effects of a tax policy change. Even dynamic models employ a given homogenous capital stock in two different allocations for the first period of two equilibrium sequences. This malleable capital assumption causes overstatement of early efficiency gains from policies designed to improve factor allocation. On the other hand, immobile factor models would understate such gains by assuming that no capital ever relocates.

The model in this paper attempts to bridge this gap by restricting each industry's capital reduction to its rate of depreciation. The stock of depreciated capital from the previous period represents an industry-specific type of capital which may earn a lower equilibrium return. The usage of mobile capital above this minimum constraint is limited by the total gross saving of the economy, including all industries' depreciation and consumer net saving.

The industry-specific capital model suggests, for example, that previous estimates of the dynamic efficiency gain from full integration of personal and corporate taxes in the U.S. are overstated by about $5 billion. The model could also be used to estimate distributional impacts on individuals with more than proportionate ownership of capital in particular industries.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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Regulations that restrict pollution by firms also affect decisions about use of labor and capital. They thus affect relative factor prices, total production, and output prices. For non-revenue-raising environmental mandates, what are the general equilibrium impacts on the wage, the return to capital, and relative output prices? Perhaps surprisingly, we cannot find any existing analytical literature addressing that question. This paper starts with the standard two-sector tax incidence model and modifies one sector to include pollution as a factor of production that can be a complement or substitute for labor or for capital. We then look not at taxes but at four types of mandates, and for each mandate determine conditions that place more of the burden on labor or on capital. Stricter regulation does not always place less burden on the factor that is a better substitute for pollution. Also, a relative restriction on the amount of pollution per unit of output creates an output-subsidy effect on factor prices that can offset and reverse the traditional output effect and substitution effect. An analogous effect is found for a relative restriction on pollution per unit of capital.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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No abstract is available for this paper.

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Building on the existing literature that examines the extent of redistribution in the Social Security system as a whole, this paper focuses more specifically on how Social Security affects the poor. This question is important because a Social Security program that reduces overall inequality by redistributing from high income individuals to middle income individuals may do nothing to help the poor; conversely, a program that redistributes to the poor may nonetheless be regressive according to broader measures if it also redistributes from middle to upper income households.

We have four major findings. First, as we expand the definition of income to use more comprehensive measures of well-being, we find that Social Security becomes less progressive. Indeed, when we use an endowment defined by potential labor earnings at the household level, rather than actual earnings at the individual level, we find that Social Security has virtually no effect on overall inequality. Second, we find that this result is driven largely by the lack of redistribution across the middle and upper part of the income distribution, so it masks some small positive net transfers to those at the bottom of the lifetime income distribution. Third, in cases where redistribution does occur, we find it is not efficiently targeted: many high income households receive positive net transfers, while many low income households pay net taxes. Finally, the redistributive effects of Social Security change over time, and these changes depend on the income concept used to classify someone as poor.

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Abstract:
When Arthur Laffer or other "supply side advocates" plot total tax revenue as a function of a particular tax rate, he draws an upward sloping segment called the normal range, followed by a downward sloping segment called the prohibitive range. Since a given revenue can be obtained with either of two tax rates, government would minimize total burden by choosing the lower rate of the normal range. A brief literature review indicates that tax rates on the prohibitive range in theoretical and empirical models have been the result of particularly high tax rates, high elasticity parameters, or both. Looking at labor tax rates and total revenue, for example, the tax rate which maximizes revenue will depend on the assumed labor supply elasticity. This paper introduces a new curve which summarizes the tax rate and elasticity combinations that result in maximum revenues, separating the "normal area" from the "prohibitive area." A general-purpose empirical U.S. general equilibrium model is used to plot the Laffer curve for several elasticities, and to plot the newly introduced curve using the labor tax example. Results indicate that the U.S. could conceivably be operating in the prohibitive area, but that the tax wedge and/or labor supply elasticity would have to be much higher than most estimates would suggest.

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This paper estimates the impact of garbage fees and curbside recycling programs on garbage and recycling amounts. Without correction for endogenous policy, a price per bag of garbage has a negative effect on garbage and a positive cross-price effect on recycling. Correction for endogenous local policy increases the effect of the user fee on garbage and the effect of curbside recycling collection on recycling. Introducing a fee of $1 per bag is estimated to reduce garbage by 412 pounds per person per year (44%), but to increase recycling by only 30 pounds per person per year.