Distributional Impacts in a Comprehensive Climate Policy Package

15 Pages Posted: 21 Jun 2010 Last revised: 1 Jul 2023

See all articles by Gilbert E. Metcalf

Gilbert E. Metcalf

Tufts University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Aparna Mathur

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

Kevin A. Hassett

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

Date Written: June 2010

Abstract

This paper provides a simple analytic approach for measuring the burden of carbon pricing that does not require sophisticated and numerically intensive economic models but which is not limited to restrictive assumptions of forward shifting of carbon prices. We also show how to adjust for the capital income bias contained in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, a bias towards regressivity in carbon pricing due to underreporting of capital income in higher income deciles in the Survey.Many distributional analyses of carbon pricing focus on the uses-side incidence of carbon pricing. This is the differential burden resulting from heterogeneity in consumption across households. Once one allows for sources-side incidence (i.e. differential impacts of changes in real factor prices), carbon policies look more progressive. Perhaps more important than the findings from any one scenario, our results on the progressivity of the leading cap and trade proposals are robust to the assumptions made on the relative importance of uses and sources side heterogeneity.

Suggested Citation

Metcalf, Gilbert E. and Mathur, Aparna and Hassett, Kevin A., Distributional Impacts in a Comprehensive Climate Policy Package (June 2010). NBER Working Paper No. w16101, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1626590

Gilbert E. Metcalf (Contact Author)

Tufts University - Department of Economics ( email )

Medford, MA 02155
United States
617-627-3685 (Phone)
617-627-3917 (Fax)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Aparna Mathur

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) ( email )

1150 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
United States
202-868-6026 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.aei.org/scholar/aparna-mathur/

Kevin A. Hassett

American Enterprise Institute (AEI) ( email )

1150 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
United States
202.862.7157 (Phone)
202.862.7177 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
37
Abstract Views
594
PlumX Metrics