Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Vehicle Choices, Miles Driven, And Pollution Policies, Ye Feng, Don Fullerton, Li Gan Jul 2013

Vehicle Choices, Miles Driven, And Pollution Policies, Ye Feng, Don Fullerton, Li Gan

Don Fullerton

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 …


Leakage, Welfare, And Cost-Effectiveness Of Carbon Policy, Kathy Baylis, Don Fullerton, Daniel H. Karney Apr 2013

Leakage, Welfare, And Cost-Effectiveness Of Carbon Policy, Kathy Baylis, Don Fullerton, Daniel H. Karney

Don Fullerton

We extend the model of Fullerton et al (2012) to explore cost-effectiveness of unilateral climate policy in the presence of leakage. We ignore the welfare gain from reducing greenhouse gas emissions and focus on the welfare cost of the emissions tax or permit scheme. Whereas that prior paper solves for changes in emissions quantities and finds that leakage maybe negative, we show here that all cases with negative leakage in that model are cases where a unilateral carbon tax results in a welfare loss. With positive leakage, however, a unilateral policy can improve welfare.


Can Pollution Tax Rebates Protect Low-Wage Earners?, Don Fullerton, Holly Monti Dec 2012

Can Pollution Tax Rebates Protect Low-Wage Earners?, Don Fullerton, Holly Monti

Don Fullerton

Pollution taxes are believed to burden low-income households that spend a greater than average share of income on pollution-intensive goods. Some proposals offset that effect by returning revenue to low-income workers via reduced labor tax. We build analytical general equilibrium models with both high-skilled and low-skilled labor, and we solve for the change in real net wage of each group. A decomposition shows the separate effects of the tax rebate, higher product prices, and the changes in relative wage rates. We also include numerical examples. Even though the pollution tax injures both types of labor, in most cases we find …


Introduction, Don Fullerton, Mark Cohen, Robert Topel Dec 2012

Introduction, Don Fullerton, Mark Cohen, Robert Topel

Don Fullerton

We introduce and summarize the ten chapters of the 2013 book we edited called "Distributional Aspects of Energy and Climate Policies". In particular, the chapters examine policies that would “price” carbon emissions or otherwise seek to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. We interpret “distributional” fairly broadly, to include impacts of pending or possible legislation on the living standards of households across the U.S. income distribution and across geographic areas, as well as international differences in the costs and benefits of climate policies that would affect countries’ willingness to participate in harmonized international agreements.