Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions: an assessment of different instruments

The possibility that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use might lead to global warming has become a leading environmental concern. Many scientific and environmental organizations have called for immediate action to limit carbon dioxide production. For the most part, however, public debate has focused on a single policy instrument: a carbon tax applied to fossil fuels in proportion to their carbon content. We present a detailed model of the U.S. economy and use it to compare carbon taxes with two other instruments that could achieve the same reduction in carbon dioxide emissions: a tax on the energy content of fossil fuels (a BTU tax) and an ad valorem tax on fuel use. We find that carbon taxes can achieve a given reduction with the least overall effect on the economy, but with a large effect on coal mining. Energy taxes are fairly similar to carbon taxes but have slightly less impact on coal mining and slightly greater overall cost. In contrast, ad valorem taxes fall much more lightly on coal mining but have a much greater effect on the economy as a whole.     

Trading Equity for Efficiency in Environmental Protection? Environmental Justice Effects from the SO2 Allowance Trading Program*

Objective. Arthur Okun made plain the fundamental conflict between efficiency and equity that arises in the pursuit of policy goals ( Okun, 1974 ). Although Okun was speaking about government tax and spending policy, the potential conflict between efficiency and equity is also manifest at the nexus of two of the most far‐reaching changes in the environmental policy arena: the adoption of market‐like tools for pollution control and the quest for environmental justice. The article assesses this potential tradeoff by determining whether the pursuit of efficiency through the Clean Air Act Amendment's (CAA) sulfur dioxide allowance trading program (ATP) inadvertently transfers pollution into poor and minority communities. Methods. I employ Probit, Tobit, and GLS models using data for all SO₂ trading activity between January 1995 and March 2009 to estimate whether allowance trading concentrates SO₂ emissions in poor communities and communities of color. When using these models, I control for sample selectivity and for possible bias stemming from the modifiable areal unit problem. Results. The ATP does not concentrate sulfur dioxide emissions in black or Hispanic communities. To the contrary, communities with high percentages of black and Hispanic residents experience fewer imports of sulfur dioxide. Allowance trading does transfer SO₂ emissions into poorly educated communities. Conclusions. There is no inherent tradeoff between efficiency and equity when using market‐based instruments for pollution control. Policymakers, however, might make an effort to design and implement future emissions trading programs in a manner that reduces the monitoring costs of tracking emissions trading. By reducing monitoring costs, policymakers may prevent the concentration of emissions in poorly educated communities while preserving the efficiency benefits of these instruments.     

A Comparison of the Effects of Material and Environmental Values on Vehicle Ownership

The results of a 1988 survey of Brisbane residents demonstrate a consistent linkage between the respondent's values and their preferences for vehicle ownership and use. Through the use of the ‘Dominant Social Paradigm’ - ‘New Environmental Paradigm’ theoretical framework (e.g. Cotgrove 1982) and the testing of ‘known groups’ (business people and members of the Rainbow Alliance) the following pattern emerged. The businesspeople were less willing to conserve fuel, and were more concerned with ‘comfort’ considerations when purchasing a motor vehicle than the Rainbow Alliance respondents who were more interested in utilitarian aspects. When subsamples with similar demographic/socioeconomic characteristics (males, respondents aged 35–49 years, respondents with household incomes between $20 000 and $49 999) were compared, the Rainbow Alliance respondents were more likely to own older, less valuable vehicles with small engines and manual transmissions. The businesspeople were more likely to own air-conditioned vehicles with poor fuel economy. This finding is an example of how people's values influence their vehicle purchasing decisions and is useful to policy-makers seeking to improve the efficiency of Australia's vehicle fleet.     

应对气候变化之政策与政策工具选择

在应对全球气候变化的紧迫形势下,经过多年的博弈,欧美将口号变为实际行动,各国基本实行的是市场机制下的碳税、排放贸易机制混合的碳减排制度,在工具选择上遵循公平性、适应性和有效性的标准。我国目前气候变化政策工具主要采用行政手段,可考虑由专家与政府共同决策,按照共同但有区别原则、分地区集团化进行的减排路径,建立以市场为主、行政为辅、法律监管为后盾的减排政策机制,实现经济工具、政治工具、法律工具的三位一体。     

Tax collection efficiency in OECD countries improves via decentralization,simplification, digitalization and education

This paper offers an assessment of tax administration performance and provides evidence of the relationship between fiscal decentralization (and tax structure) and the technical efficiency of tax collection. The initial stage of the investigation consists of a data envelopment analysis (DEA) to obtain technical efficiency estimates for a sample of 28 OECD countries over the period 2004–2017. In a second stage, we explore how technical efficiency is affected by fiscal decentralization and tax structure variables. The results show how the degree of fiscal decentralization has a positive and significant impact on the technical efficiency of tax collection. They also reveal a relevant role of tax structure choices and the ratio of indirect to direct taxes, which can significantly affect tax collection efficiency. Finally, we extract some policy implications.     

Social stability and agrarian change in the eastern lowlands of Scotland, 1810–1840

John J. McCusker, Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World, Routledge Studies in International Economic and Social History, I (1997), xxiii + 426 (Routledge, London and New York, £65.00/$65.00).

Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (1997), xvi + 419 (University of California Press, London and Berkeley, £40.00/$50.00, paperback £15–95/$19–95).

Helen Bradley Foster, ’New Raiments of Self’: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South (1997), ix + 359 (Berg Publishers, New York, £39.95/$46.00, paperback

Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje and Robert Asher (eds), American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, 1750–1850 (1995), xx + 251 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, £37.00/$45.00, paperback £14.00/$16.95).

David R. Green, From Artisans to Paupers: Economic Change and Poverty in London 1790–1870 (1995), xvii + 298 (Scolar Press, Aldershot £45.00/$76.95).

Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle‐Class Society in Imperial Austria 1848‐igi8 (1996), xxi + 386 (Purdue University Press, £34.95/$40.95).

Pieter M. Judson, Exclusive Revolutionaries. Liberal Politics, Social Experience, and National Identity in the Austrian Empire, 1848–1914 (1996), xi + 304 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £42.50/$49.50).

Geoff Eley (ed.), Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930 (1996), viii + 522 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, £47.50/$59.50, paperback $26.95).

Neil MacMaster, Colonial Migrants and Racism:Algerians in France, 1900–62 (1997), vii + 307 (St Martin's Press, New York, £45.00/$65.00).

Gerd‐Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism. Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s (1996), xii + 211 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £42.50/845.00).

Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protest to Socialist State (1997), xviii + 445 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £52.50/$65.00, paperback £19–95/$24.95).

Ryan Bishop and Lillian S. Robinson, Night Market. Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle (1998), x + 278 (Routledge, London and New York, £45.00/$65.00, paperback £12.99/$17.95).

Katharine H. S. Moon, Among Allies. Military Prostitution in U.S.‐Korea Relations (1997), xiii + 240 (Columbia University Press, New York, $47.50, paperback $16.95).     

Statistics and the Public Sphere. Numbers and the People in Modern Britain,c. 1800–2000

Susan Elizabeth Ramírez, The World Upside Down. Cross‐Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth‐Century Peru (1996), vii + 234 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, £45.00).

Biography Database, 1680–1830: Personal Edition (1997; a rerelease of the 1995 institutional edition with updated software) (Romulus Press Ltd with the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 91.83/$125).

Martin Hewitt, The Emergence of Stability in the Industrial City: Manchester, 1832–67 (1996), ix + 335 (Scolar Press, Aldershot, £45.00/$74.95).

Louise Young, Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (1998), xiii + 487 (University of California Press, Berkeley, £35.00/$45.00).

Kevin Passmore, From Liberalism to Fascism: The Right in a French Province, 1928–1939 (1997), xvii + 333 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £40.00/$59.95).     

关于实施结构性减税政策若干问题的分析

2011年中央经济工作会议提出,2012年我国要继续实施积极的财政政策。结构性减税政策在积极的财政政策中具有重要的地位和作用。近年来,我国实施的结构性减税政策具有多税种并用、多手段并举、多环节并促的特点,这一政策在减轻企业和居民税收负担、鼓励和扩大内需、引导经济结构战略性调整、保障和改善民生等方面产生了积极效应。从动态上看,减税政策对经济的刺激作用在一定程度上增强了经济活力,培育了新的税源,为国家继续实施积极的财政政策提供了可靠的财力保障。     

The economic effects of carbon tax on China’s provinces

The responsibility for carbon emissions tends to be different under different emission accounting principles. By applying the latest 2012 Chinese multi-regional input–output table, this study evaluated the impacts of carbon tax on tax burdens and sectoral competitiveness in Chinese provinces when considering either production-based or consumption-based emissions. Our results indicated that, in the scenario of cutting production tax for carbon tax, the developed provinces, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, who are much bigger payers of production tax, are net beneficiaries of carbon tax. In contrast, recycling the tax revenues to low-income households makes the less-developed provinces in the central and western China become net revenue receivers. Furthermore, for competitiveness effects, the emission intensive sectors, such as Electricity and hot water production and supply, Petroleum and gas, and Metal products, are impacted vitally under both accounting principles in all provinces. Nevertheless, compared with the production-based principle, a consumption-based carbon tax could reduce the unfavorable competitiveness effects of most affected sectors in the less-developed provinces, while slightly increasing those effects in the developed provinces. Our results provide new information on the regional impacts of carbon tax based two different accounting principles with different tax revenue recycling scenarios.     

中国节能减排：征税还是部门总量控制与交易

目前,中国的节能减排面临艰巨的任务。近来,有关碳税的讨论广受关注。从理论上来看,碳税是应对气候变化、推进节能减排的最优路径。但在中国目前的特殊体制和宏观经济形势下,征收碳税须慎之又慎。我们必须首先解决好碳税的减排效果、碳税对经济增长的冲击、税负转嫁、税收中性等问题后再考虑开征碳税。对碳税要展开进一步研究,要对2012年开征的时间表进行重新修正。同时,要把重点对准碳交易,花大力气去研究、探索、建立中国的碳交易体系。     

The RSA (Revenu de solidarité active) and back‐to‐work incentives in France

Using an inventory of local and/or non‐statutory transfers (droits connexes) in 13 French towns and cities, the article first measures the gains from returning to work for recipients of national, statutory means‐tested benefits (Revenu minimum d'insertion— RMI, and Allocation parent isolé— API) by type of household before 2009. The reforms of national, statutory benefits carried out during the 2000s, especially those affecting the working tax credit (Prime pour l'emploi— PPE), failed to ensure that the recipients of means‐tested benefits always stood to gain financially from returning to work. The effects of the reforms were offset by the effects of other measures. The article then simulates the effects of the introduction of the Revenu de solidarité active (RSA) in place of the RMI in 2009, and takes into account the way that local and/or non‐statutory transfers are modified by increases in national, statutory transfers. We observe that the RSA eliminates the financial disincentives to returning to work for almost all localities and types of household. The article shows that the marginal tax rate of 38 per cent chosen by the government is very close to the upper limit compatible with a back‐to‐work incentive.     

Shifting taxes away from labour enhances equity and fiscal efficiency

This paper analyzes the effects of a hypothetical tax reform in Italy, which makes current tax credits more generous and refundable, shifting the tax burden from labour to property. Our methodology contains novel features of great relevance for policy analysis: first, a structural model of labour supply of both employees and self-employed; second, a labour market equilibrium model that encompasses demand side constraints; last, detailed tax system simulation under fiscal neutrality. The empirical findings provide guidance for policy makers’ actions to enhance equity and efficiency of tax system and confirm the relevance of the methodological approach.     

Edward Thompson's contribution to eighteenth‐century studies. The patrician‐plebeian model re‐examined

Mark Colvin, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs: Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth‐Century America (1997), x + 294 (St Martin's Press, New York, £35.00/$45.00).

Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor:The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (1996), xix + 264 (Verso, London and New York, £39–95/$65–00, paperback £13.95/$19–00).

Adele Lindenmeyr, Poverty is Not a Vice: Charity, Society and the State in Imperial Russia (1996), xiv + 335 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £35.00/$49.50).

Hew Strachan, The Politics of the British Army (1997), 328 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £30.00/$55.00).

Philippe Minard, La fortune du colbertisme: Etat et industrie dans la France des Lumières (1998), 505 (Fayard, Paris, 160 FF). [Colbert's Legacy: State and Industry in Enlightenment France.]

William Doyle, Venality: The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth‐Century France (1996), xvii + 343 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £45.00/$85.00).

Alan Forrest, The Revolution in Provincial France: Aquitaine 1789–1799 (1996), vi + 377 (Clarendon Press, Oxford and New York, £45.00/$85.00).

Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin‐de‐Siècle Paris (1998), xiii + 230 (University of California Press, Berkeley, $35.00).     

Turning to Nature in Germany. Hiking,Nudism, and Conservation, 1900–1940

David Rollison, The Local Origins of Modern Society. Gloucestershire 1500–1800 (1992), xvi + 319 (Routledge, £35.00).

Charles Carlton, Going to the Wars. The Experience of the British Civil Wars, 1638–1651 (1992), xii + 428 (Routledge, £25.00).

Ian Gentles, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653 (1992), xii + 584 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £40.00).

Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (1991), xxvii + 484 (Allen Lane Penguin, Harmondsworth, £25.00; paperback (1993), £8.99).

L. D. Schwarz, London in the Age of Industrialization: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force, and Living Conditions, 1700–1850 (1992), xv + 285 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00).

Ted W. Margadant, Urban Rivalries in the French Revolution (1992), xvi + 511 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., £47.50, paperback £14.95).

Ann F. La Berge, Mission and Method: The Early Nineteenth‐Century French Public Health Movement (1992), xviii + 376 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £45.00).

Joseph P. Reidy, From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800–1880 (1992), xiv + 360 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, $45.00).

Allan Greer and Ian Radforth (eds), Colonial Leviathan: State Formation in Mid‐Nineteenth‐Century Canada (1992), xii + 328 (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, US $62.00, paperback $25.95).

David Mitch, The Rise of Popular Literacy in Victorian England (1992), xxiii + 340 (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia n.p.).Patricia Anderson, The Printed Image and the Transformation of Popular Culture 1790–1860 (1991), xi + 211 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £30.00).

Henrika Kuklick, The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885–1945 (1991), 325 (Cambridge University Press, £30.00).

Maguelonne Toussaint‐Samat, History of Food (1992), xix + 801 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £25.00).

James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (1992), xii + 229 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £35.00, paperback £11.95).     

The Culture of Giving: Informal Support and Gift-Exchange in Early Modern England

Alain Boureau, The Lord's First Night: The Myth of the Droit de Cuissage (1998), ix + 300 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, $55.00/£43.95, paperback $19.00/£15.25).

Rosemary Sweet, The Writing of Urban Histories in Eighteenth Century England (1997), ix + 356 (Oxford University Press, New York, £45.00/$90.00).

Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore (eds), Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of US‐Latin American Relations (1998), xv + 575 (Duke University Press, Durham, $19.95).     

Transport related social exclusion in New Zealand: Evidence and challenges

Abstract

People without functional access to a car in countries where private vehicles are the predominant form of transport are at a disadvantage. Alternative modes of travel in such settings often do not meet people's mobility needs, creating barriers to participation in work, education, social activities, sport and leisure, and to accessing basic goods and services. In New Zealand, private vehicles have long been prioritised as the mode of personal transport in land transport planning policy. However, this is beginning to change with policy objectives now including improvement of access and mobility for all, and reduction of social exclusion. Despite this there is very little evidence of the experiences of those with mobility or access problems in New Zealand. This article seeks to provide qualitative data about experiences of transport related social exclusion, the efficacy of alternative modes for people's mobility needs, the impacts of these difficulties on people's lives, and the policy implications of these findings.     

Extending social security coverage to the rural sector in China

In late 2009 China launched an innovative, voluntary programme that by 2011 had extended pension coverage to 326.4 million people in the rural sector, including contributors and beneficiaries. It requires one contribution per year and provides a flat‐rate benefit and a contributions‐related benefit through a contributory individual account, with a government guarantee that the benefit will continue for life. The programme encourages participation of persons who do not pay income taxes, and thus have no tax incentive to participate, by providing substantial government subsidies. As a further incentive, old‐age benefits are provided to older parents when all their adult children participate in the contributory programme.     

Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas,Peoples, and Cultures

Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders, translated by Patrick Geary (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, n.p.).

Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (1991), x + 219 (Polity Press, Cambridge, £35.00).

Philip Rawlings (ed.), Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices: Criminal Biographies of the Eighteenth Century (1992), xi + 224 (Routledge, £40.00).

RuthPaley (ed.), Justice in Eighteenth‐Century Hackney: The Justicing Notebook of Henry Norris and the Hackney Petty Sessions Book (1991), xxxiii + 253 (London Record Society, £20.00).

Lee Davison, Tim Hitchcock, Tim Keirn and Robert Shoemaker (eds), Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689–1750 (1992), liv + 170 (Alan Sutton, Stroud, £25.00).

James A. Leith, Space and Revolution: Projects for Monuments, Squares and Public Buildings in France, 1789–1799 (1991), xiv + 362 (McGill‐Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, £50.00).

R. J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party. The Making of the British Middle Class: Leeds, 1820–1850 (1990), xi + 356 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £35.00).

Anaclet Pons and Justo Serna, La ciudad extensa: la burguesia comercial‐finan‐ciera enla Valencia de mediados del siglo xix (1992), 389 (Diputació de València, Valencia, n.p.).

David J. V. Jones, Crime in Nineteenth‐Century Wales (1992), xiv + 295 (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, £25.00).

Martin J. Wiener, Reconstructing the Criminal. Culture, Law and Policy in England, 1830–1914 (1990), ix + 390 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £30.00).

Lucia Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England (1991), 364 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £40.00).

Nancy Grey Osterud, Bonds of Community: The Lives of Farm Women in Nineteenth‐Century New York (1991), ix + 303 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, $42.50, paperback $14.95).

Eleanor Gordon, Women and the Labour Movement in Scotland, 1850–1914 (1991), 312 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £35.00).

Sonya Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth‐Century England (1992), ix + 292 (Routledge, £30.00).

M. L. Bush (ed. ), Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500: Studies in Social Stratification (1992), vii + 267 (Longman, £24.00, paperback £10.99).     

Gray Peril or Loyal Support? The Effects of the Elderly on Educational Expenditures*

Objectives. Do large concentrations of elderly represent a “gray peril” to maintaining adequate educational expenditures? The gray peril hypothesis is based on an assumption of instrumental self‐interest in political behavior. In contrast, we argue that loyalty to community schools competes with economic self‐interest and that older citizens are heterogeneous in their preferences. Methods. We test these arguments and their implications for public school finance using a data set of more than 9,000 school districts. Results. The data show that longstanding older residents represent a source of support for educational expenditures while elderly migrants lower spending. Further, this divide among the elderly and their impact on policy outputs depends on how states finance local public education and on aspects of state and local tax policy. Conclusions. Elderly concentrations are a financial asset for a school district unless the senior community includes a large number of new arrivals. The design of tax policy can have enormous impact on the depth of political cleavages and their ultimate impact on public policy. The results are consistent with the idea that loyalty—an emotional bond between residents and their community's institutions—competes with and often trumps instrumental self interest.     

The Effect of Financial Incentives and Access to Services on Self-funded Admissions to Long-term Care

With the growth in the numbers and proportion of older people in the population the funding and incentive structures around long‐term care are of international concern. A study of the circumstances of self‐funded admissions to care homes allowed the comparison of self‐funders with publicly funded admissions to care homes in the UK, the influences on self‐funders in their decision to move into a care home and resources on which they were able to draw. These findings contribute to our understanding of the impact of current policy on self‐funders and our thinking about the way that future policy and practice changes could improve the way we use society's resources in the provision of long‐term care.