Taking advantage of the structure of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA), we study the tradeoff between efficiency and equity associated with different levels of discretionary power when delegating regulatory authority to lower levels of government. Exploiting an instrumental variables approach, we provide evidence that the benefits of the 1990 CAAA were highly localized and accrued dispro...

This paper examines the sensitivity of inequality and poverty measures to the adult equivalence scale and the unit of analysis. Comparisons are made using parametric equivalence scales, and income units include individuals, equivalent adults and households. The role of the correlation between equivalent income and household size, and the weight attached to children, is examined analytically. Em...

We report a vehicle-fleet experiment with an economic incentive for keeping within speed limits using a speed-alert device. A traffic insurance scheme was simulated with a monthly bonus during two months reduced by a non-linear speeding penalty. Participants were randomly assigned into four treatment and two control groups. A third control group consists of drivers who had the device and were m...

We analyze a situation where a principal wants to induce two firms to produce an output, e.g. electricity from renewable energy sources. Firms can undertake non-contractible investments to reduce production cost of the output. Part of these investments spills over and also reduces production cost of the other firm. Comparing a general price subsidy and an innovation tournament, we find that the...

This paper quantifies how international trade affects CO2 emissions and analyzes the welfare consequences of regulating the CO2 emissions from shipping. To this end the paper describes a model of trade and the environment, compiles new data on the CO2 emissions from shipping, and estimates key parameters using panel data regressions. Results show that the benefits of international trade exceed ...

Competition among regional governments may lead to suboptimal levels of capital taxation, as governments ignore the external benefits of capital flight to other regions. However, there have been few attempts to quantify the magnitude of the resulting efficiency losses. This paper presents extensive calculations of the efficiency costs over a wide range of parameter scenarios and assumptions abo...

Imperfect altruism between generations may lead to insufficient capital accumulation. We study the welfare consequences of taxing the rent on a fixed production factor, such as land, in combination with age-dependent redistributions as a remedy. Taxing rent enhances welfare by increasing capital investment. This holds for any tax rate and recycling of the tax revenues except for combinations of...

We analyse congestion pricing in a road and rail network, where the two modes are imperfect substitutes. On the road there is bottleneck congestion; in each train there is crowding congestion. We model two dimensions of preference heterogeneity; these two dimensions have opposite effects on the welfare impact of congestion pricing and lead to different distributional effects. The distributional...

We compare three different views on the long run efficiencies of emission taxes which include thresholds, and of tradable emission permits where some permits are initially free. The differences are caused by different assumptions about whether thresholds and free permits should be subsidies given only to firms that produce, or full property rights. Treating tax thresholds, as well as free permi...

Random taxation may be optimal when the tax payers differ in their attitudes towards risk, so that tax randomization enables the government to separate agents who otherwise would have been pooled. The paper provides conditions under which randomization is optimal, both characterizing circumstances where local random deviations are improving in a neighborhood of a non random optimum, and giving ...