Environmental Tax Reform: Efficiency and Political Feasibility

Abstract

Command-and-control measures, despite their inefficiencies, are still the standard in environmental policy. This might be due to the fact that command-and-control instruments prevent monetary redistribution between sectors and households and leave property rights on remaining pollution with the emittents. The present paper interprets the no-redistribution policy as a political constraint and investigates on more efficient alternatives to command-and-control, using a computable general equilibrium model for Switzerland. Simulation results render schemes that refund environmental tax revenues by a sector-by-sector-subsidy on labor or output as welfare enhancing.