Discover the policy briefs of the Urban New Deal Chair

Within the framework of the Urban New Deal Chair, policy briefs are regularly published to clarify specific research topics related to the chair’s research.

October 2023

Analyzing the French fuel tax to better target polluters by Stéphane Gauthier

This policy brief discusses how the French government attempts to reconcile efficiency, equity, and environmental concerns in its taxation of fuel. It stresses the tension between imposing higher taxes on less price-sensitive goods, such as fuel, for efficiency reasons and the need to consider the impact on economically vulnerable populations. Addressing pollution from fuel consumption would require implementing personalized taxes that are higher for heavy polluters. The current uniform taxation system disproportionately would benefit urban drivers, who cause the highest environmental damages, though despite the French government’s goal of favoring rural communities.

April 2023

How do knowledge spillovers shape the activity of public transport operators? by Philippe Gagnepain

This research is an attempt to measure knowledge spillovers in the French urban transport sector where a few large industrial groups are in charge of operating several urban networks. Exerting an effort in a specific network allows a cost reduction in this network, but it also benefits other networks that are members of the same group. Results suggest that diversity of knowledge across operators of the same group increases the flow of spillovers. Simulation exercises provide evidence of significant reductions in total operating costs following the enlargement of industrial groups.

March 2023

How does the energy crisis change cities’ climate action plans? by Nicolas Hatem

Focusing at the urban scale, Nicolas Hatem examines the extend to which the social cost of a climate action plan is modified by energy inflation. He suggests that the recent shock on European energy prices implies sufficiently large windfall benefits to make investments in low-carbon energy assets more cost-efficient than in energy retrofits.

The Urban new deal Chair has been created to contribute to the public debate in France and at an international level on the conditions that facilitate the implementation of these transformations and providing decision-making support tools for city stakeholders.