Environmental Tax Reform and Income Distribution with Imperfect Heterogeneous Labor Markets

Pré-publication, Document de travail: This paper investigates the distributional and efficiency consequences of an environmental tax reform, when the revenue from the green tax is recycled by varying labor tax rates. We build a general equilibrium model with imperfect heterogeneous labor markets, pollution consumption externalities, and non-homothetic preferences (Stone-Geary utility). We show that in the case where the reform appears to be regressive, the gains from the double dividend can be made Pareto improving by using a redistributive non-linear income tax if redistribution is initially not too large. Moreover, the increase of progressivity acts on unemployment and can moderate the trade-off between equity and efficiency. We finally provide numerical illustrations for three European countries featuring different labor market behaviors. We show that a double dividend may be obtained without worsening the initial inequalities if the green tax revenues are redistributed with a progressivity index lower for France than for Germany and UK.

Auteur(s)

Diane Aubert, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline

Date de publication
  • 2017
Mots-clés JEL
D62 D63 H23 Q52 Q58
Mots-clés
  • Environmental tax reform
  • Heterogeneity
  • Unemployment
  • Welfare analysis
  • Tax progressivity
Référence interne
  • PSE Working Papers n°2017-27
Version
  • 1