Discussion on “Tariffs for electrical energy, with particular reference to domestic tariffs”

Embodied Carbon Tariffs

Embodied carbon tariffs tax the direct and indirect carbon emissions embodied in trade — an idea popularized by countries seeking to extend the reach of domestic carbon regulations. We investigate their effectiveness using simulations from an applied general equilibrium model of global trade and energy use. We find that the tariffs do reduce foreign emissions, but their ability to improve the g...

Best Practice Tariffs

On the Incidence of US Tariffs

MUCH attention has been devoted to the study of the structure of tariffs in industrial nations and its impacts on the level and composition of their imports from developing countries. Studies have identified two sources of bias against imports from developing countries inherent in tariff structures of industrial nations. First, tariffs used by industrial nations have been found to bear more hea...

Mixing Goods with Two-Part Tariffs∗

We consider a market where consumers mix goods offered by two firms differentiated a la Hotelling, and show how tariff structures affect consumers, profits, and location decisions. As compared to linear pricing, when firms charge two-part tariffs they make higher profits while consumers are worse off. The resulting allocation is not efficient since firms choose extreme locations and too little ...

A Comparison of Optimal Tariffs and Welfare under No Lobbying, Domestic Lobbying, and Domestic-foreign Lobbying

Whether and what type of the lobbying-induced trade policies can improve the domestic welfare? We show that as compared to the case of no lobbying and the case of domestic lobbying, the domestic-foreign lobbying achieves the lowest tariff and may also realize the highest welfare for the domestic country. Our results suggest that the domestic-foreign lobbying may contribute to a freer trade in t...