Suchergebnisse

This book is a collection of readings that explore environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean using natural science and social science methods. These papers demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and solve environmental problems. The essays are organized into five parts: conservation challenges; national policies, local communities, and rural development; market mechanisms for protecting public goods; public participation and environmental justice; and the effects of development policies on the environment.

Abstract
Despite technological advances, an individual car's emissions still cannot be measured reliably enough to impose a Pigovian tax. This paper explores alternative market incentives that could be used instead. We solve for second-best combinations of uniform taxes on gasoline, engine size, and vehicle age. For 1,261 individuals and cars in the 1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey, we record the car's model, year, and number of cylinders. We then seek a corresponding car in data from the California Air Resources Board that shows the car's engine size, fuel efficiency, and emissions per mile. We calculate the welfare improvement from a zero-tax scenario to the ideal Pigovian tax, and we find that 71 percent of that gain can be achieved by the second-best combination of taxes on gas, size, and vintage. A gas tax alone attains 62 percent of that gain. These results are robust to variation in the elasticity of substitution among goods.

Abstract
Alcohol taxes are typically justified as a means to address externalities from alcohol abuse and to raise government revenue. Prior literature has focused on measuring the Pigouvian tax but has paid little attention to the fiscal rationale. This paper presents an analytical and simulation framework for assessing the optimal levels, and welfare effects, of alcohol taxes and drunk driver penalties, accounting for both externalities and how policies interact with the broader fiscal system.Under plausible parameter values and recycling possibilities, the fiscal component of the optimal alcohol tax may be as large, or larger, than the externality-correcting component. Therefore, fiscal considerations can significantly strengthen the case for higher alcohol taxes. They also raise the welfare gains from alcohol taxes relative to those from drunk driver penalties, and they warrant differential taxation of individual beverages on an alcohol equivalent basis.