Don Fullerton - Böcker

Many effects of environmental and energy policy are likely to disproportionately burden those with low income. First, it raises the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products that constitute a high fraction of low-income budgets (like gasoline, heating fuel and electricity). Second, the handout of pollution permits to firms provides value to those who own them. Third, low-income individuals may place more value on food and shelter than on improvements in environmental quality, so high-income individuals may get the most benefit of pollution abatement. Fourth, air quality improvements may raise the value of houses owned by landlords, rather than helping renters. These effects might all hurt the poor more than the rich. This book brings together the seminal economics literature that studies whether these fears are valid and whether anything can be done about them.

Debates about tax policy arise every year in Washington, and legislative changes occur almost as often. In just the past decade, corporate tax burdens were dramatically reduced and then subsequently increased. But who really bears the burden of taxation? Finding a satisfactory way to address this question remains one of the biggest challenges for economists. While much research has explored this issue using annual data on household incomes and expenditures, this book considers the multiple effects of taxes on individuals over their entire lifetimes.Since annual incomes typically vary from year to year, and change systematically over the course of a lifetime, annual income is not necessarily a good indicator of a person's relative well-being. Instead, Dianne Rogers and Don Fullerton categorize individuals into lifetime income groups, and re-estimate the pattern of earnings over the lifetime of each group. They utilize a general equilibrium model that encompasses household demands, work effort, and savings, and they calculate the distribution of each current tax. Because their model includes all major U.S. federal, state, and local taxes, it can be used to simulate the effects of changes in any of those taxes on investment, productivity, resource allocation, and the distribution of burdens.Don Fullerton is professor of economics at the University of Virginia and visiting professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, School of Urban and Public Affairs. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Analysis from 1985 to 1987. Diane Lim Rogers is assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University.

Governments around the globe have begun to implement various actions to limit carbon emissions and so, combat climate change. This book brings together some of the leading scholars in environmental and climate economics to examine the distributional consequences of policies that are designed to reduce these carbon emissions.Whether through a carbon tax, cap-and-trade system or other mechanisms, most proposals to reduce carbon emissions include some kind of carbon pricing system - shifting the costs of emissions onto polluters and providing an incentive to find the least costly methods of abatement. This standard efficiency justification for pricing carbon also has important distributional consequences - a problem that is often ignored by economists while being a major focus of attention in the political arena. Leading scholars in environmental and climate economics take up these issues to examine such questions as: Will the costs fall on current or future generations? Will they fall on the rich, poor, middle class, or on everyone proportionally? Which countries will benefit, and which will suffer?Students and scholars interested in climate change, along with policy makers, will find this lively volume an invaluable addition to the quest for information on this globally important issue.Contributors include: S. Barrett, G.S. Becker, J. Blonz, C. Boehringer, D. Burtraw, M.A. Cohen, M. Deshpande, S. Devarajan, J. Elliott, C. Fischer, I. Foster, D. Fullerton, R. Goettle, M. Greenstone, T. Hertel, G. Heutel, M.S. Ho, D.W. Jorgenson, K. Judd, L. Kaplow, C.D. Kolstad, S. Kortum, A.M. Levinson, R.D. Ludema, G.E. Metcalf, E. Moyer, T. Munson, K.M. Murphy, S. Paltsev, I.W.H. Parry, W. Randolph, S. Rausch, J.M. Reilly, K.E. Rosendahl, D.T. Slesnick, R.H. Topel, M.A. Walls, D.A. Weisbach, M.L. Weitzman, P.J. Wilcoxen, R.C. Williams

The market for residential solid waste management and disposal has experienced dramatic changes over the past 20 years. This collection of outstanding published research examines these changes and thoroughly analyzes the strategies popularized by municipal governments over the past two decades.Kerbside recycling, unheard of in the 1970s, is currently available to 46% of Americans. Thousands of towns across the nation have also implemented user fees requiring households to pay a fee for every bag of garbage they generate. These policy shifts have attracted the attention of environmental economists interested in knowing the best strategy for managing solid waste. The editors, both long-time scholars of these trends, offer theoretical solutions for the optimal pricing of garbage and recycling collection. They provide original data collection and suggest appropriate econometric techniques that correct for statistical biases. A policy focus provides information relevant to municipal governments as well as researchers.This excellent volume will be useful for policymakers, students and scholars in environmental economics.

The Distribution of Tax Burdens brings together for the first time the most important published papers on tax incidence written in the past 50 years. The editors, two leading scholars in public finance, have written an authoritative introduction which provides a concise and thorough summary of the key developments in the field during this time.This comprehensive volume presents seminal writings covering the distributional impact of taxes in partial and general equilibrium models as well as in imperfectly competitive settings. The editors have also included significant recent contributions on tax incidence in dynamic settings including the important emerging literature on lifetime tax incidence. The articles have been arranged to allow the reader to understand the context and historical development of the field. This volume will be invaluable to graduate students and all scholars interested in the distribution of taxes in modern economies.