Carbon Tariffs: An Analysis of the Trade, Welfare and Emission Effects

59 Pages Posted: 12 Feb 2014

See all articles by Mario Larch

Mario Larch

University of Bayreuth - Faculty of Law, Business and Economics; University of Bayreuth; CESifo; Ifo Institute for Economic Research; GEP at the University of Nottingham; Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Info. Internationales (CEPII)

Joschka Wanner

University of Bayreuth

Date Written: February 2015

Abstract

Carbon tariffs are one prominently discussed climate policy. The proponents stress the carbon tariffs’ ability to restore competitiveness, avoid carbon leakage, and reduce world carbon emissions. We analyze the effects of carbon tariffs on trade, welfare, and carbon emissions in a structural gravity model. We find that the introduction of carbon tariffs reduces welfare in most countries and the effect tends to be most pronounced in developing countries. Further, carbon emissions are massively shifted from these countries to industrialized countries and world carbon emissions decrease by 0.83 percent, with a bootstrapped 95% confidence interval of [-0.92, -0.80]. In our two-sector, two-factor gravity model, we are able to decompose the emission changes into scale, composition, and technique effects. While for individual countries composition accounts for 73 percent of the change on average, two thirds of the world reduction are due to the world scale effect.

Keywords: carbon tariffs, climate policy, gravity model

JEL Classification: F140, F180, Q560

Suggested Citation

Larch, Mario and Wanner, Joschka, Carbon Tariffs: An Analysis of the Trade, Welfare and Emission Effects (February 2015). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 4598, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2393989 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2393989

Mario Larch (Contact Author)

University of Bayreuth - Faculty of Law, Business and Economics ( email )

Universitätsstraße 30
Bayreuth, 95447
Germany
0049 / (0) 921 - 55 6240 (Phone)

University of Bayreuth ( email )

Universitatsstr 30
Bayreuth, D-95447
Germany

CESifo ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Ifo Institute for Economic Research ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, 01069
Germany

GEP at the University of Nottingham ( email )

University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD
United Kingdom

Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Info. Internationales (CEPII) ( email )

9 rue Georges Pitard
Paris Cedex 15, F-75015
France

Joschka Wanner

University of Bayreuth ( email )

Universitatsstr 30
Bayreuth, D-95447
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
233
Abstract Views
1,343
Rank
238,301
PlumX Metrics