IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v146y2020ics0301421520305279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal emissions tax rates under habit formation and social comparisons

Author

Listed:
  • Chan, Ying Tung

Abstract

The existing climate models ignore the behavioral anomalies of households and conclude that the optimal environmental tax rate should comove with business cycles. However, this assumption has received extensive criticism recently. To this end, this paper studies the optimal emissions tax rate when households are bounded rational. In particular, we calculate the optimal climate policy in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that features households with habit formation (internal habits) and social comparisons (external habits). Compared to the benchmark model without consumption externality, the social comparisons model amplifies consumption volatility but produces a similar response of pollutant emissions in the presence of the three types of economic shocks considered. In contrast, the habit formation model decreases the volatility of both consumption and pollutant emissions. In contrast to the previous result that the optimal emissions tax rate should be procyclical, we find that the social comparisons model largely mitigates the procyclicality of optimal emissions tax rates, and the optimal emissions tax rates under the habit formation model remain constant in response to all the economic shocks considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Chan, Ying Tung, 2020. "Optimal emissions tax rates under habit formation and social comparisons," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:146:y:2020:i:c:s0301421520305279
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520305279
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111809?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    --->

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gowdy, John M., 2008. "Behavioral economics and climate change policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 632-644, December.
    2. Jody Overland & Christopher D. Carroll & David N. Weil, 2000. "Saving and Growth with Habit Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 341-355, June.
    3. Campbell Leith & Ioana Moldovan & Raffaele Rossi, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a New Keynesian Model with Habits in Consumption," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(3), pages 416-435, July.
    4. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2008. "Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 95-144, March.
    5. Alonso-Carrera, Jaime & Caballe, Jordi & Raurich, Xavier, 2005. "Growth, habit formation, and catching-up with the Joneses," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1665-1691, August.
    6. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Monteiro, Goncalo, 2007. "Consumption externalities, production externalities, and efficient capital accumulation under time non-separable preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 479-504, February.
    7. Richard Dennis, 2009. "Consumption Habits in a New Keynesian Business Cycle Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(5), pages 1015-1030, August.
    8. Carroll, Christopher D & Overland, Jody & Weil, David N, 1997. "Comparison Utility in a Growth Model," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 2(4), pages 339-367, December.
    9. Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas J Sargent, 2014. "Robust Control and Model Uncertainty," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: UNCERTAINTY WITHIN ECONOMIC MODELS, chapter 5, pages 145-154, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    11. Settle, Chad & Shogren, Jason F., 2004. "Hyperbolic discounting and time inconsistency in a native-exotic species conflict," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 255-274, June.
    12. Fischer, Carolyn & Springborn, Michael, 2011. "Emissions targets and the real business cycle: Intensity targets versus caps or taxes," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 352-366.
    13. repec:grz:wpaper:2013-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    15. Adrien Verdelhan, 2010. "A Habit‐Based Explanation of the Exchange Rate Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 123-146, February.
    16. Rachel Croson & Nicolas Treich, 2014. "Behavioral Environmental Economics: Promises and Challenges," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(3), pages 335-351, July.
    17. Amato, Jeffery D. & Laubach, Thomas, 2004. "Implications of habit formation for optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 305-325, March.
    18. Eckerstorfer, Paul & Wendner, Ronald, 2013. "Asymmetric and non-atmospheric consumption externalities, and efficient consumption taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 42-56.
    19. Annicchiarico, Barbara & Diluiso, Francesca, 2019. "International transmission of the business cycle and environmental policy," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    20. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    21. Garth Heutel, 2012. "How Should Environmental Policy Respond to Business Cycles? Optimal Policy under Persistent Productivity Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 244-264, April.
    22. Bouakez, Hafedh & Cardia, Emanuela & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2005. "Habit formation and the persistence of monetary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1073-1088, September.
    23. Acurio Vásconez, Verónica & Giraud, Gaël & Mc Isaac, Florent & Pham, Ngoc-Sang, 2015. "The effects of oil price shocks in a new-Keynesian framework with capital accumulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 844-854.
    24. van de Stadt, Huib & Kapteyn, Arie & van de Geer, Sara, 1985. "The Relativity of Utility: Evidence from Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(2), pages 179-187, May.
    25. Khan, Hashmat & Metaxoglou, Konstantinos & Knittel, Christopher R. & Papineau, Maya, 2019. "Carbon emissions and business cycles," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-19.
    26. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    27. Niu, Tong & Yao, Xilong & Shao, Shuai & Li, Ding & Wang, Wenxi, 2018. "Environmental tax shocks and carbon emissions: An estimated DSGE model," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 9-17.
    28. Samuel Bowles & Yongjin Park, 2005. "Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours: Was Thorsten Veblen Right?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(507), pages 397-412, November.
    29. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    30. Bill Dupor & Wen-Fang Liu, 2003. "Jealousy and Equilibrium Overconsumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 423-428, March.
    31. Richard Easterlin, 2005. "Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness: A Reply to Hagerty and Veenhoven," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 429-443, December.
    32. Marek Antosiewicz & Piotr Lewandowski & Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, 2016. "Input vs. Output Taxation—A DSGE Approach to Modelling Resource Decoupling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, April.
    33. J. Farmer & Cameron Hepburn & Penny Mealy & Alexander Teytelboym, 2015. "A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(2), pages 329-357, October.
    34. Barbara Annicchiarico & Fabio Di Dio, 2017. "GHG Emissions Control and Monetary Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 823-851, August.
    35. Campbell Leith & Ioana Moldovan & Raffaele Rossi, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a New Keynesian Model with Habits in Consumption," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(3), pages 416-435, July.
    36. Annicchiarico, Barbara & Di Dio, Fabio, 2015. "Environmental policy and macroeconomic dynamics in a new Keynesian model," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1-21.
    37. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2012. "Behavioral Economics and Environmental Policy," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 75-99, August.
    38. Dissou, Yazid & Karnizova, Lilia, 2016. "Emissions cap or emissions tax? A multi-sector business cycle analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 169-188.
    39. Richard Easterlin, "undated". "Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income? A Caveat," University of Southern California Legal Working Paper Series usclwps-1004, University of Southern California Law School.
    40. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
    41. Lawrence J. Christiano & Michele Boldrin & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2001. "Habit Persistence, Asset Returns, and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 149-166, March.
    42. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Trabandt, Mathias & Walentin, Karl, 2010. "DSGE Models for Monetary Policy Analysis," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 7, pages 285-367, Elsevier.
    43. Punzi, Maria Teresa, 2019. "The impact of energy price uncertainty on macroeconomic variables," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1306-1319.
    44. Easterlin, Richard A., 1995. "Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 35-47, June.
    45. George Economides & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2018. "Monetary policy under climate change," Working Papers 247, Bank of Greece.
    46. Atalla, Tarek & Blazquez, Jorge & Hunt, Lester C. & Manzano, Baltasar, 2017. "Prices versus policy: An analysis of the drivers of the primary fossil fuel mix," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 536-546.
    47. Richard Easterlin, 2005. "Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income? Caveat Emptor," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 243-255, February.
    48. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen Bergh, 2011. "Environmental Policy Theory Given Bounded Rationality and Other-regarding Preferences," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 263-304, June.
    49. repec:jhu:papers:357 is not listed on IDEAS
    50. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2005. "How much do we care about absolute versus relative income and consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 405-421, March.
    51. Easterlin, Richard A., 1974. "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 111773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    52. Marek Antosiewicz & Piotr Lewandowski & Jan Witajewski-Baltvilks, 2016. "Input vs. Output Taxation—A DSGE Approach to Modelling Resource Decoupling," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, April.
    53. Harald Uhlig & Lars Ljungqvist, 2000. "Tax Policy and Aggregate Demand Management under Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 356-366, June.
    54. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June.
    55. Liu, Wen-Fang & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2005. "Consumption externalities, production externalities, and long-run macroeconomic efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 1097-1129, June.
    56. J. Solnick, Sara & Hemenway, David, 1998. "Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 373-383, November.
    57. Martin Kesternich & Christiane Reif & Dirk Rübbelke, 2017. "Recent Trends in Behavioral Environmental Economics," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(3), pages 403-411, July.
    58. Osborn, Denise R, 1988. "Seasonality and Habit Persistence in a Life Cycle Model of Consumptio n," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(4), pages 255-266, October-D.
    59. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    60. Olof Johansson-Stenman & Fredrik Carlsson & Dinky Daruvala, 2002. "Measuring Future Grandparents" Preferences for Equality and Relative Standing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 362-383, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Busato, Francesco & Chiarini, Bruno & Cisco, Gianluigi & Ferrara, Maria, 2021. "Greta Thunberg effect and Business Cycle Dynamics: A DSGE model," MPRA Paper 110141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Chan, Ying Tung & Zhao, Hong, 2023. "Optimal carbon tax rates in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with a supply chain," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Xiao, Bowen & Fan, Ying & Guo, Xiaodan, 2021. "Dynamic interactive effect and co-design of SO2 emission tax and CO2 emission trading scheme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Glocker, Christian & Wegmüller, Philipp, 2024. "Energy price surges and inflation: Fiscal policy to the rescue?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    5. Chan, Ying Tung & Punzi, Maria Teresa & Zhao, Hong, 2024. "Green transition and financial stability: The role of green monetary and macroprudential policies and vouchers," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. Francesco Busato & Bruno Chiarini & Gianluigi Cisco & Maria Ferrara, 2023. "Green preferences," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 3211-3253, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chan, Ying Tung & Zhao, Hong, 2023. "Optimal carbon tax rates in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with a supply chain," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    3. Aronsson, Thomas & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2014. "Positional preferences in time and space: Optimal income taxation with dynamic social comparisons," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-23.
    4. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Monteiro, Goncalo, 2007. "Consumption externalities, production externalities, and efficient capital accumulation under time non-separable preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 479-504, February.
    5. Hyeon O. Lee & Hyun Park, 2015. "Indeterminate Balanced Growth under Habit Persistence and Fiscal Policies," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 259-284, June.
    6. van den Bijgaart, Inge, 2016. "Essays in environmental economics and policy," Other publications TiSEM 298bee2a-cb08-4173-9fe1-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Goncalo Monteiro & Stephen Turnovsky, 2013. "Anticipated Consumption and its Impact on Capital Accumulation and Growth: 'Forward-Looking' vs. 'Backward-Looking' Consumption Reference," CESifo Working Paper Series 4536, CESifo.
    8. Thomas Aronsson & Sugata Ghosh & Ronald Wendner, 2023. "Positional preferences and efficiency in a dynamic economy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(2), pages 311-337, August.
    9. Francesco Busato & Bruno Chiarini & Gianluigi Cisco & Maria Ferrara, 2023. "Green preferences," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 3211-3253, April.
    10. Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco & Van Long, Ngo, 2011. "The relative income hypothesis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1489-1501, September.
    11. Busato, Francesco & Chiarini, Bruno & Cisco, Gianluigi & Ferrara, Maria, 2021. "Greta Thunberg effect and Business Cycle Dynamics: A DSGE model," MPRA Paper 110141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Park, Hyun, 2013. "Do habits generate endogenous fluctuations in a growing economy?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 54-68.
    13. Ying Tung Chan, 2019. "Optimal Environmental Tax Rate in an Open Economy with Labor Migration—An E-DSGE Model Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-38, September.
    14. Manuel A. Gómez, 2010. "The welfare cost of external habits: a quantitative assessment," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 37(1 Year 20), pages 5-26, June.
    15. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado, 2007. "Envy, leisure, and restrictions on working hours," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1286-1310, November.
    16. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Ngo Van Long, 2008. "A Permanent Income Version of the Relative Income Hypothesis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2361, CESifo.
    17. Chang, Ming-Jen & Chang, Juin-Jen & Shieh, Jhy-Yuan, 2014. "Keeping up with the Joneses and exchange rate volatility in a Redux model," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 569-584.
    18. Gómez Manuel A., 2010. "Endogenous Growth, Habit Formation and Convergence Speed," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, January.
    19. Goncalo Monteiro & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2016. "Anticipated consumption and its impact on capital accumulation and growth: “Forward-looking” versus “backward-looking” consumption reference," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 12(3), pages 203-232, September.
    20. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:146:y:2020:i:c:s0301421520305279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.