Environmental taxation and inclusive green growth in developing countries: does the quality of institutions matter?

The promotion of inclusive green growth is one of the most debated topics in international forums and is considered a major concern by all countries in the world. Although the existing literature has examined several determinants of inclusive green growth, the impact of environmental taxation on inclusive green growth is relatively little explored. This study is therefore the first attempt to examine the impact of the environmental tax on inclusive green growth for developing countries from 2000 to 2021. To do this, we apply the system generalised method of moments (GMM) that controls unobserved heterogeneity, heteroskedasticity, simultaneity, reverse causality and endogeneity. The empirical results show that environmental tax promotes inclusive green growth. In addition, our results indicate that the control of corruption, government efficiency, the quality of regulation and the rule of law interact with the environmental tax to promote inclusive green growth. Furthermore, this study reveals interestingly that the environmental tax has a positive impact on the two components of inclusive growth and green growth, but the institutional factors that accentuate the impact of the environmental tax are somewhat nuanced. The results of the study have important policy implications for decision-makers in developing countries in promoting inclusive and environmentally friendly growth.

Asymmetric effect of environment tax and spending on CO2 emissions of European Union

This study investigates the effects of environmental tax and environmental spending on CO2 emissions of 27 countries of the European Union EU27 countries using annual time series data from 1995 to 2022. The study used linear and non-linear autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL and NARDL) to examine the relationship. Estimates claim that the variables have a symmetric and asymmetric long-term and short-term relationship. The negative impacts of environmental taxes on CO2 emissions prove that emissions are reduced when polluting activities are taxed. Fiscal policy instrument such as taxation changes the behaviour of the private sector in the EU27 nations by disincentivizing polluting activities. On the other hand, government investment in environmental protection has encouraged the private sector in the EU27 nations to embrace and invest in green technologies, decreasing CO2 emissions. The ECM term is negative and statistically significant at a 1 percent significance level for ARDL and NARDL models, implying a stable long-run relationship between variables. It demonstrates that short-run disequilibrium converges to long-run equilibrium at a speed of 9.2% (in the ARDL model) and 22.7% (in the NARDL model). The study also sheds fresh light on the effectiveness of environmental taxes vs. expenditure, where taxes serve as a counter-incentive policy for CO2 emissions, and spending is a positive policy intervention.

Quantile-based effect of energy, transport, and total environmental tax on ecological footprint in EU5 countries

Considering a vast majority of application areas, the study investigates how environmental tax (ET) affects ecological footprint. In this context, the study examines the European Union Five (EU5) countries, considers ecological footprint (EF) as the proxy of the environment, uses ET as tax-based environmental measures by making both disaggregated (i.e., energy and transport) and aggregated level analysis, and performs novel nonlinear quantile-based approaches for the period from 1995/Q1 to 2021/Q4. The outcomes show that on EF (i) energy-related ET has only a declining effect at lower and middle quantiles in Germany and at lower quantiles in Italy, whereas it does not have a curbing effect in other countries; (ii) transport-related ET is not effective on EF in any country, which means that it does not have a curbing effect; (iii) total ET has a decreasing effect in only Germany; and (iv) the alternative method validates the robustness. Thus, the study demonstrates the changing effect of ET across countries, quantiles, and ET types in curbing EF. Hence, it can be suggested that Germany can go on relying further on energy-related ET practices to decrease EF, whereas there is a long way for the remaining EU5 countries as well as transport-related ET in curbing EF.

Determining the green technology innovation accelator and natural resources towards decarbonization for the EU countries: evidence from MMQR

Gearing up for green technology innovation (GTI) and natural resources has become even more important in the transition to a zero-emission life, a green economy, and sustainable development goals. This attempt has become a situation that needs to be overpowered much sooner by the European countries, which have encountered challenges in many ways, especially regarding natural resources, energy supply, and the climate crisis. In this vein, the current study follows the novel, robust Method of Moment Quantile-Regression (MM-QR), which successfully yields heterogeneous information structure across quantiles, to examine the determinants of GTI for 15 EU countries over the period of 2003-2018. MM-QR estimation results indicate that the determinants of green technology innovation are heterogeneous across the EU countries. While green growth (GG) has an adverse impact on GTI in middle- and high-GTI countries, the effect of ecological footprint on GTI is positive for countries in the highest-GTI countries. The positive effects of financial development (FD) on GTI are revealed for all countries. Remarkably, environmental taxes have an adverse and positive influence on GTI in the lowest and highest quantile countries, respectively. Finally, renewable energy and greenfield FDI have no effect on GTI. Governments can promote GTI by providing financial resources, in the most immaculate way, to firms that engage in green technology projects, as well as by encouraging these through environmental taxes.

The impact of environmental taxation on the structure and performance of industrial symbiosis networks: An agent-based simulation study

How to use appropriate policy measures to intervene industrial symbiosis is valuable in theory but still lacks exploration. This paper discusses the effect of environmental taxation on industrial symbiosis networks. Firstly, the formation mechanism of industrial symbiotic network is analysed with the idea of agent-based modelling. Then, a simulation model was built to simulate the emergence process of industrial symbiosis networks. On this basis, the influence of environmental taxation on the structure and performance of the industrial symbiosis networks is explored. The results show that when the intensity of environmental tax is low, the industrial symbiotic network has the structural characteristics of random network. With the increase of environmental tax intensity, the cyclic ordering of network structure is gradually enhanced. The collection of environmental tax will not only reduce pollution, but also reduce the economic output of the network and reduce enterprise income to a greater extent. Finally, some relevant suggestions for the government to formulate environmental tax policy are provided based on the results.

Size of government and willingness-to-pay for environmental policy: Evidence from a cross-country survey

Citizen support is an important precursor to climate change mitigation polices. Public opinion can shape public policy and vice versa. This paper uses the 2010 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Environment Module to investigate cross-national differences in support for climate policy. We introduce size of government, measured by government revenues as a share of GDP, as a new country-level factor. Our sample includes 31,511 responses from 33 countries. We use multilevel models to estimate the relationship between country-level factors and environmental policy support, conditional on a series of individual factors. Increasing the size of government by one standard deviation reduces support for environmental policy by 0.13 points on a 5-point scale. For comparison, a one standard deviation increase in GDP per capita leads to a 0.24 increase in support and a one standard deviation increase in air pollution leads to a 0.13 point increase. The implication for environmental policy is that high tax countries have an aversion to price and tax increases aimed at protecting the environment. We conclude that use of taxes for environmental policy must include clear expectations for how revenues will be recycled or how other taxes will be lowered if they are to gain widespread support.

The impacts of China's dual carbon policy on green innovation: Evidence from Chinese heavy-polluting enterprises

Encouraging enterprises to engage in green innovation is a potent strategy for reducing carbon emissions from production. As one of the largest carbon emitters, China has launched a series of policies to achieve carbon peaking and neutrality collectively referred to as China's dual carbon policy. However, existing research on the impact of China's dual carbon policy on green innovation by heavy-polluting enterprises is insufficient. To fill this gap, this study constructed a theoretical model to draw hypotheses about the impact of the dual carbon policy on enterprises' green innovation and verified this impact using a difference-in-differences model to conduct a quasi-natural experiment based on data from 2010 to 2022 from Chinese A-share-listed enterprises. The results indicate that the dual carbon policy had a significantly positive influence on green innovation in heavy-polluting enterprises. Moreover, environmental tax mediated this effect, while enterprises' total costs and subsidies positively moderated it. Additionally, the impact exhibited variations based on several key factors, including green patent type, carbon emissions, enterprise ownership structure, and Environmental, Social, and Governance ratings. This study supplements related research on the effects of environmental policy on green innovation and provides both theoretical and empirical support for adapting subsequent environmental policies.

Green innovation and environmental quality in OECD countries: the mediating role of renewable energy and carbon taxes

The exceptional rise in overall economic activities has deteriorated environmental sustainability around the world. However, countries around the globe are implementing strategies for reaching the global climate objective. For this purpose, OECD countries committed many efforts, although their pledges and results are not parallel to the level of the Paris Agreement's ambition. This study examines the impact of eco-innovation, environmental taxes, and renewable energy consumption on the environmental performance of selected OECD countries over the period of 2006 to 2020. This study uses the generalized method of moments (GMM) and instrumental variables 2 stage least square (2SLS) methods. For robustness checks, this study uses a quantile regression approach. We conclude that an increase in the adoption of renewable energy and green innovation has a statistically significant impact on controlling CO2 emissions. Moreover, the empirical model is expanded by incorporating environmental taxes as an explanatory variable. The expanded model showed that the imposition of environmental taxes has a detrimental impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions. Moreover, on the contrary, an increase in economic activities, measured by GDP, is responsible for rising CO2 emissions in OECD countries. In light of the results we obtained, policy recommendations are provided.

Spatial effects and heterogeneity analysis of the impact of environmental taxes on carbon emissions in China

Environmental taxes are important means by which governments can address environmental pollution problems. Amid increasingly severe global warming, how should environmental taxes be used to better combat pollution and reduce emissions to promote sustainable socioeconomic development? This empirical analysis explores the influence of environmental taxes on CO2 emissions by utilizing a spatial Durbin model constructed with panel data from 2006 to 2020 encompassing 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities under the direct jurisdiction of China's central government. First, we found that a strong spatial auto-correlation exists between carbon emission intensity and environmental taxes at the geographic and economic levels in each province. The characteristics of high-high and low-low agglomeration are consistent with the actual situation where each province has a strong regional correlation. Second, the estimation results of environmental taxes' spatial effect on carbon emissions show that under the neighboring space weight matrix, environmental taxes and fees can not only better promote regional carbon emission reduction but also reduce the carbon emissions of neighboring regions. Under the economic distance weight matrix, environmental taxes' impact on reducing carbon emission intensity in the province is not significant, but it can promote the reduction of carbon emissions in the economically neighboring provinces. Additionally, the results of the sub-tax estimation of environmental taxes and carbon emission intensity show that differences exist in the impacts of different environmental taxes on carbon emission intensity under different weight matrices. Among them, environmental protection, resource, vehicle and vessel, and urban land use taxes are basically unfavorable in reducing carbon emission intensity in a region and its neighboring regions, while urban maintenance and construction and cultivated land occupation taxes enhance carbon emission reduction. Our findings suggest that efficiently promoting carbon emissions reduction requires effectively utilizing the spatial effects of environmental taxes and carbon emissions, establishing and improving the regional carbon emissions reduction linkage mechanism, including carbon dioxide in the scope of taxation to further strengthen environmental taxes' positive impact on carbon emission reduction, and focusing on the heterogeneity of environmental tax implementation to achieve emission reduction goals.

Taxing for a better life? The impact of environmental taxes on income distribution and inclusive education

This paper examines the impact of environmental taxes on economic and social inequalities using data from 38 OECD countries from 1994 to 2020. The results show that the introduction of an environmental tax can have unequal consequences on population groups due to differences in consumption behaviour and access to environmental alternatives. The results also indicate that environmental taxes with a progressive character (i.e. higher for higher income households) can reduce inequalities and improve environmental efficiency. The introduction of environmental taxes should therefore be done with care and with due regard to their impact on inequality. Tax policies must be designed to protect the most vulnerable households and promote equity while protecting the environment. Thus, environmental taxation should be accompanied by social and economic policies that reduce inequalities and support the most affected social groups. It is also important for governments to have better communication and awareness-raising on the impacts of environmental taxation on inequalities, in order to ensure a just transition towards sustainable lifestyles.

Powering sustainable growth in West Africa: exploring the role of environmental tax, economic development, and financial development in shaping renewable energy consumption patterns

Over time, the economy's growth, financial development, and environmental taxes have become vital tools in countering ecological degradation and promoting clean energy. However, there needs to be a research gap in assessing these policies' collective impact on renewable energy adoption, especially in developing West African countries. This study addresses this gap by evaluating the effectiveness of these policies from 1990 to 2020, using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), fixed effect, and pooled Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test reveals bidirectional causality between economic growth and renewable energy consumption, as well as between financial development and renewable energy use. Unidirectional causality is found from environmental tax to renewable energy consumption. GMM results highlight the positive influences of economic growth and environmental taxes on renewable energy consumption, while financial development negatively affects it. These outcomes are consistent with fixed effect and pooled OLS models. Sectorial heterogeneity analysis indicates better results for countries with strong institutions, advanced technology, and strict regulations. In conclusion, this study's insights can guide policies for sustainability in West Africa, leveraging economic growth, environmental taxes, and technology for effective renewable energy integration.

How do carbon emissions and eco taxation affect the equity market performance: an empirical evidence from 28 OECD economies

This study examines the nexus between "stock returns," carbon emissions, and "environmental tax" in 28 OECD countries for the period 1994 to 2014. To this end, we employ second-generation econometric techniques that are robust to macroeconomic and financial datasets to eliminate the issues associated with heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The "common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG)" and "augmented mean group (AMG)" estimators are a pioneering attempt to explore the association between the cross sections. These approaches take into account the complexities of real-world data and provide a more accurate understanding of the relationship between the variables. Several studies explored the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth. However, the literature lacks studies examining the impact of "environmental tax" implementation on "stock returns," which is a central policy instrument to curb emissions. The results demonstrate a significant and negative relationship between CO2 emissions and "stock market index returns" and a positive and significant relationship between "environmental tax" and "stock market index returns." Furthermore, both these relationships prevail in the world's biggest financial markets and second largest CO2 emitters, the USA. The empirical findings offer various useful implications for investors, policymakers, brokers, corporations, governmental pollution abatement institutions, and other stakeholders who wish to obtain a carbon risk premium.

Impact mechanism of environmental protection tax policy on enterprises' green technology innovation with quantity and quality from the micro-enterprise perspective

Promoting green technology innovation through environmental tax is an important tool to achieve green development. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2020, this research examines the impact mechanisms of environmental tax policies on the quality and quantity of enterprise green technology innovation from the micro-enterprise perspective. The underlying mechanisms and heterogeneous effects were analyzed empirically using pooled OLS model and the mediated effects model. The results indicate that the environmental tax policy has an inhibitory effect on the quantity and quality of green patents, and the impact on the quantity is more significant. The mechanism analysis suggests that the environmental tax inhibits green technology innovation via accelerating capital renewal and environmental investment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that environmental tax has an inhibitory effect on green technology innovation behavior of large-scale enterprises and eastern region enterprises, while it has a boosting effect on green technology innovation of western region enterprises, and its effect on quantity of innovation is greater than that on quality. This study helps Chinese enterprises to better achieve green development from the perspective of green taxation and provides important empirical basis for achieving the win-win goal of economic growth and environmental development.

Expanding on STRIPAT model

Anthropogenic global warming strategies on carbon mitigation are driven by encouraging green innovation and using carbon taxes, yet an empirical model to validate this is non-existing. Moreover, the existing stochastic effects by regression on population, wealth, and technology (STIRPAT) model has been found to lack policy tools on taxes and institutions that cut carbon emissions. This study amends the STIRPAT model with environmental technology, environmental taxes, and strong institutional frameworks to create a new model STIRPART(stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, regulation, and technology) to understand the factors impacting carbon pollution using the emerging 7 economies. Using data from 2000 to 2020, the Driscoll-Kraay fixed effects are employed in this analysis to conduct evidential tests of the impacts of environmental policies, eco-friendly innovations, and strong institutions. The outcomes indicate that environmental technology, environmental taxation, and institution quality decrease E7's carbon emissions by 0.170%, 0.080%, and 0.016%, respectively. It is recommended that E7 policymakers should adopt the STIRPART postulate as the theoretical basis for policies favoring environmental sustainability. The key contribution is the amendment of the STIRPAT model and the enhancement of the market-based mechanisms, such as patents, strong institutions, and carbon taxes, to enable environmental policy to be carried out sustainably and cost-effectively.

Can environmental taxes and green-energy offer carbon-free E7 economies? An empirical analysis in the framework of COP-26

The main cause of environmental degradation is carbon emissions, which puts environmental sustainability in jeopardy. This ecological worry, the obligation for which falls on all economic actors, has not gone undetected, and so in 2021, the Glasgow Climate Pact (COP: 26) was organized, with the primary aim of decreasing global carbon emissions. Because the Post-Glasgow Agreement goals represent a significant challenge to achieving ecological responsibility, pressure is applied to the participating nations. However, earlier literature lacked sufficient investigation of factors useful for the mitigation of carbon emissions in E7 (China, Turkey, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico) economies. Hence, we aim to fill this research vacuum by predicting the impact of clean fuels and cooking technology availability, renewable energy, and environmental taxes on E7 economies' carbon emissions from 2000 to 2020, while taking urbanization and population expansion into account. Evaluation is done using four different cross-sectional dependence (CSD) methods, as well as unit root tests (CIPS and CADF), cointegration analysis (Westerlund and Kao), and the Driscoll-Kraay and quantile-on-quantile long-run factor estimate methods. The long-run analysis revealed from our findings that environmental tax, renewable energy, and access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking decrease carbon emission for the E7 economies. On the other hand, urbanization and population growth enhance emissions for the E7 economies. Finally, our results hold up under a variety of policy interpretations that would aid in reducing carbon emissions and their negative effects on the environment.

Additional social welfare of environmental regulation: The effect of environmental taxes on income inequality

This study utilizes the environmental tax reform in China as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the effect of environmental taxes on income inequality. In January 2018, the Environmental Protection Tax Law (EPTL) came into effect in China, provinces began to collect environmental taxes in accordance with the law. We find that the reform contributes to lower within-firm wage inequality. The reform leads to declines in executive compensation and increases in worker wages. We further find that tax enforcement, environmental regulations, fiscal stress and tax competition vary the relationship between the reform and wage inequality. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effect is greater in non-state-owned firms, small firms, and firms with higher board shareholdings. Extensive robustness tests corroborate our inferences. This paper verifies the effectiveness of environmental regulation in enhancing social welfare, and is beneficial for assessing the welfare effects of environmental regulation more accurately. The findings can also help the government reduce obstacles in the implementation of environmental taxes, and further enhance the effectiveness of the EPTL.

Heterogeneous impact of environmental taxes on environmental quality: Tax domain based evidence from the nordic countries by nonparametric quantile approaches

This study aims to examine the heterogeneous causality and impact of environmental taxes at both aggregated and disaggregated levels on environmental quality. In this context, the study focuses on Nordic countries as green economies; handles carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions as an environmental quality indicator; includes aggregated and disaggregated levels of environmental taxes as explanatory variables; uses quarterly data for the period 1994/Q1-2020/Q4 as the most recent available data; applies novel nonparametric Granger causality-in-quantiles (GCQ) and quantile-on-quantile regression (QQR) approaches as the main models while using quantile regression (QR) for robustness check. The results present that (i) causal impacts of environmental taxes on CO₂ emissions exist in most quantiles at disaggregated levels excluding some lower, middle, and higher quantiles, whereas indicator-, country-, and quantile-based results vary; (ii) environmental tax on energy (ETE) has a mainly decreasing impact in Iceland, a mixed impact in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden based on quantiles; (iii) environmental tax on pollution (ETP) has the highest decreasing impact in most quantiles in Denmark, Iceland, and Norway; (iv) environmental tax in transport (ETT) has a decreasing impact in Norway and Sweden, whereas it has a reverse impact in Denmark, Finland, and Iceland; (v) impact of total environmental tax (TET) has a decreasing impact in Denmark and Norway at some quantiles, whereas an increasing impact in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden; (vi) the robustness of the QQR results are confirmed by the QR approach. Hence, the results underline the importance of country and quantile-based disaggregated analyses and Nordic countries should re-adjust environmental taxes to increase environmental quality.

Is environmental tax an enabler of circularity: new insights from the unique database

This paper provides answers to the question that the environmental tax enables the circular economy. By employing six diverse measures to reflect circularity (namely the amount of municipal waste, the number of circularity patents, the amount of circular material used, the rate of recycling waste, the rate of recycling biowaste, and the rate of recycling e-waste) and four measures of environmental tax (namely total environmental tax revenue, energy tax revenue, pollution and resource tax revenue, and transportation tax revenue) of European countries, our article provided a comprehensive analysis of the nexus between environmental tax and circularity performance. A panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) model and a feasible generalized least square estimates (FGLS) model are employed to study this association, while the dynamic fixed effects (DFE) estimator is applied to the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method to measure both the short-run and long-run effects. Our study reveals the heterogeneous effects of an environmental tax on circularity. Taxing on the energy sector, the polluted sector, and transportation stimulate the process of circularity. Notably, our estimation results reveal that environmental tax can enable European countries to transit to a circular economy, especially in the long term. Our findings are critical for economists and policymakers in using the tax as an effective tool to promote a country's circularity performance.

Analysing the co-benefit of environmental tax amidst clean energy development in Europe's largest agrarian economies

The increasing human activities amidst competition for resources across the globe has made environmental challenges an ongoing classic problem, thus prompting policymakers to continually seek effective solution while ensuring sustainable development. With the wide coverage of the relevance of the double dividend hypothesis in explaining the co-benefit of environmental tax, there is a dearth of evidence in the literature to suggest that environmental tax offers green dividends for both the environment and agricultural practice in the European countries. As such, this study employed the more recent Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) alongside other approaches for Europe's largest agrarian economies (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) over the annual period 1995-2020. The investigation affirms the validity of the co-benefit of environmental tax as far as environmental sustainability and value-added to agriculture are concerned in this panel of 'Big Four' economies, thus motivating the countries to relentlessly pursue the carbon-neutral 2050 target. Moreover, the study aligns with the expectation that renewable energy utilization and population density are desirable factors for achieving a carbon-neutral target. Lastly, the findings suggest that environmental quality is attainable in the panel, especially as increasing income surpasses a certain threshold, thus validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Above all, the findings provide timely policy insight that accommodates both the environmental sustainability and food security framework of the European Union. The policy options relevant in light of the study's conclusions include that the decision makers in the selected agrarian economies should ramp up energy transition opportunities through a resilient environmental tax system that incentives availability of credit and investment financing in the agriculture sector.

Research on the economic impact of environmental tax under the background of state-owned enterprise shareholding reform in an open economic system

In this paper, we construct a Stackelberg-Cournot tripartite game model and discuss the impact of tariff policy on the privatization of the state-owned enterprise, environmental tax, pollutant emission, and social welfare in an open economic system. We find that with the increase in tariff, the proportion of privatization of the state-owned enterprise increases, environmental tax falls, and environmental pollution alleviates. The relationship between social welfare and tariff is inverted U-shaped. A closed trade environment is most conducive to environmental protection, but the environmental tax at this time is very detrimental to social welfare. When social welfare is optimal, environmental damage is not the smallest.

Promoting construction and demolition waste recycling by using incentive policies in China

In the recent two decades, construction and demolition (C&D) waste is becoming a major source of municipal waste which causes severe damage to the environment. To solve the problem, waste recycling measures are gradually used to turn waste into treasures. Meanwhile, several kinds of policies such as waste disposal charging fees have been issued to stimulate stakeholders' behavior to take waste recycling measures to promote the C&D waste recycling industry. However, the C&D waste recycling rate is still too low in China. In order to promote C&D waste recycling industrial development, this paper aims at introducing subsidy and environmental tax policies to promote C&D waste recycling. Based on system dynamics method, this study establishes a model to determine the proper subsidy and environmental tax range. According to the simulation results, three kinds of incentive policies are obtained, namely, single subsidy policy, single environmental tax, and combined incentive policies. Optimal single subsidy and environmental tax are in the interval, [10, 30] and [20, 60], respectively. The best combination strategy is subsidy = 10 yuan/ton and environmental tax = 20 yuan/ton. The results from this paper could be a foundation for government to establish incentive policies to promote C&D waste recycling.

The effects of environmental tax on Ecological Footprint and Carbon dioxide emissions: a nonlinear cointegration analysis on Turkey

This article presents a nonlinear analysis in Turkey on the effect of an environmental tax (ET) on the ecological footprint (EFP) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. In the literature, most of the studies examining the effects of environmental taxes (ETs) on environmental degradation (ED) have used linear methods. The number of studies examining this relationship with nonlinear methods is few. However, there is no study examining the long-run effects of ETs on the EFP, which is one of the most important indicators of ED, using nonlinear analysis. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the long-run effects of ETs on EFP and CO₂ emissions in Turkey by nonlinear analysis. Therefore, the model consisting of annual data for the period 1994-2019 was estimated by Dufrénot et al. (2006) nonlinear cointegration test. According to the estimation results obtained, ETs do not have any long-run effects on EFP and CO₂ emissions. Accordingly, it can be concluded that ETs in Turkey do not affect preventing ED.

Does COVID-19 make the firms' performance worse? Evidence from the Chinese listed companies

The influence of pandemics is still a black box, and the mechanism is attracting the attention of policymakers and scholars to guide the policy design in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemics. This paper takes an in-depth look at the performance impact of pandemics from the perspective of operation, which is essential in a comprehensive evaluation of the economic effects of pandemics. With the help of novel quarterly data of Chinese listed firms from 2019 Q1 to 2021 Q2, we find that the Covid-19 decreases the sale-related profitability. For the mechanism, this paper finds that the pandemics make the operation longer, increase the cost, and reduce the potential cash flows. In addition, the environmental tax can significantly weaken the adverse shocks. The policy implication is that the sale boosting or consumption stimulus is vital in economic recovery, and the governments should efficiently use the positive effect of environmental tax.

Can environmental tax bring strong porter effect? Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Existing researches verify Porter hypothesis mainly through one of its core establishment paths, innovation compensation, but ignore the other one, first-mover advantages. This paper considers both these paths and further distinguishes environmental R&D and non-environmental R&D in empirical study. Based on the smooth transition principle of "charge to tax" in China, this paper, taking Chinese A-share listed companies that have disclosed environmental R&D from 2008 to 2017 as sample and predicting environmental tax by pollution charge, analyzes the relationship between environmental tax and firm performance and its transmission mechanism. First, our results show that environmental tax can improve firm performance, and this influence remains in long term. After introducing instrument variable (IV) to deal with endogeneity and conducting a series of robustness tests, we then find that the relationship between environmental tax and firm performance is a robust causality. Eventually, we apply mediating effect model to further confirm the two core paths of Porter hypothesis by manifesting that environmental tax can affect firm performance through both innovation compensation and first-mover advantages. Our contributions are revealing the micro mechanism of environmental tax on firm performance, providing evidence from China to support strong Porter hypothesis, and offering some key points regarding environmental tax reform and corporate green strategy.

Multiplexing efficiency of environmental taxes in ensuring environmental, energy, and economic security

This paper assesses the multiplexing efficiency of environmental taxes in ensuring environmental, energy, and economic security which is an integral part of sustainability in six European countries that are leaders in the Environmental Performance Index. This study aims to confirm the hypothesis that environmental taxes and payments could simultaneously affect changes in important environmental, energy, and economic security as well as sustainability parameters. Not all the previously selected taxes, which affect the parameters of all three areas of environmental, energy, and economic sustainability and security can ensure their simultaneous growth. Calculations made for the period 1994-2019 showed that in the system of environmental taxation of Denmark, five environmental taxes and fees provide an increase in the integrated level of environmental, economic, and energy security and sustainability; in Belgium, two environmental taxes are characterized by multiplex efficiency; in France, seven environmental taxes and payments; in Austria, four; in Finland, one; and in the UK, four. The paper's findings could create the basis for improving environmental taxation systems in the countries to increase comprehensive national security growth and ensure sustainable development path of the countries.

Technological innovation and environmental taxes toward a carbon-free economy: An empirical study in the context of COP-21

Carbon emissions are the main factor in environmental degradation, associated with climate change and global warming, which puts environmental sustainability at risk. Carbon dioxide is the main element to mitigate to achieve climate neutrality on the planet, which is present in fossil fuels highly demanded power generation. This environmental concern, which entails all economic agents' responsibility, has not gone unnoticed, so in 2015 the Paris Climate Conference (COP: 21) was held, whose main objective is to reduce carbon emissions on the planet. Post Paris agreement generates pressure on the signatory countries since the objectives set are a real challenge to achieve environmental sustainability. Thereby, this research aims to examine the long-term determinants of carbon emissions in 19 countries of the European Union that were part of the COP: 21. The Method of Moments' Quantile Regression approach is used, which considers the effects of location and scale in the conditional distribution of carbon emissions. The results show that clean energy, technology and environmental taxes contribute to mitigating carbon emissions; however, economic activity and industrialization causes an increase in environmental degradation. From the results obtained, the findings suggest some policy measures aimed at offsetting carbon emissions.

An evolutionary analysis of corruption in the process of collecting environmental tax in China

Considering the bargaining power of enterprises, this paper distinguishes between "Offering Bribes Voluntarily" (OBV) and "Offering Bribes under Pressure from Environmental Inspectors" (NOBV). An evolutionary game model between environmental inspectors and enterprises is constructed to study the corruption of environmental inspectors in the process of environmental tax collection under the system of upward accountability. At the same time, numerical simulations are carried out using China's pollution discharge data and pollution discharge fee collection standards in 2017. The results show that when enterprises have different bargaining powers, there are differences in the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) in the process of environmental tax collection. Enterprises with weak bargaining power may adopt "OBV" strategy. Under the system of upward accountability, it is difficult for the public to form adequate supervision over polluting enterprises and environmental inspectors. Only with the power of the upper-level government can the public's supervisory role be brought into play. High audit costs and environmental tax rates may be objective incentives for environmental inspectors' corruption and enterprises' bribery.

Do environmental taxes reduce air pollution? Evidence from fossil-fuel power plants in China

Taking environmental protection into consideration, China introduced the new Environmental Protection Tax Law in 2018, which levies taxes for pollutants with higher standards. The vast majority of existing studies have investigated the impacts of environmental taxes (ETs) at the city level or province level. In contrast, we estimate their effects on pollutant reductions for fossil-fuel power plants in 30 provinces in China. Our results show that ETs have positive effects on pollutant emission reductions compared with the pollution discharge fee policy. We provide empirical evidence that sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and dust from fossil fuel power plants significantly decreased by 2.186 (7.7%), 1.550 (6.84%), and 1.064 (16.1%) tons, respectively, after the implementation of the policy. Moreover, there is an inverted U-shape relationship between pollutant emission reductions and tax rates. We offer further evidence that they play a limited role in high environmental regulation regions. Finally, we compare how different types of firms responded to ETs. The results show that ETs have limited effects on pollutant reductions for large state-owned coal power plants, which may have achieved environmental transformation to a certain extent. Therefore, policymakers could consider promoting tax rates in areas with low tax rates and strengthening tax breaks to stimulate firms to achieve pollutant reduction. In addition, local governments should set tax rates taking regional environmental regulation levels and firm heterogeneity into account.

Analysis of environmental taxes publications: a bibliometric and systematic literature review

This study aims to provide a systematic literature review based on bibliometric analysis for scientific articles published between 1999 and 2019 extracted from Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science (WOS) database. The current research project provides an overview of scientific publications, influential authors, and research journals. Our analysis reveals that the USA leads the academic research contribution, whereas China has provided the most research publications in recent years. Environmental and Resource Economics, University of London, and Barcena-Ruiz are the most productive journal, academic institution, and author in the field of environmental taxes, respectively. The degree of research contribution among researchers, institutional and national level, has an upward trend in recent years; however, the research contribution at the author level is higher than the institutional and national level. Furthermore, cocitation analysis suggests that research articles in the dataset are closely related. Pigou's "The economics of welfare" published in 1920, is considered as the basic literature, and the "In defence of degrowth" authored by Giorgis Kallis is the most cited article. Our analysis of abstracts and keywords indicates that climate change, environmental taxes, double dividend, carbon tax, and environmental pollution are the hotspots within academic literature. We suggest that research collaboration between developed and developing nations and further coordination among environmental agencies such as IEA and IPCC will enhance the effectiveness of environmental reforms.

CGE modeling with disaggregated pollution treatment sectors for assessing China's environmental tax policies

This research involved constructing a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for assessing China's latest environmental tax policies. Most environmental CGE models link pollutant emissions to the standard CGE model only by pollution coefficients per unit of sectoral output, and the emission reduction process is not included within production structures. We constructed separate pollution treatment sectors for solid waste management, wastewater management, and waste gas management to describe the pollution treatment processes and identify how policies affect production activities. We compiled the satellite accounts of 18 pollutants from the China Environmentally Extended Input-Output (CEEIO) dataset covering primary gas, water, and solid pollutants and disaggregated the electricity sector into six different production technologies: hydroelectricity, coal power, gas electricity, oil electricity, nuclear power, and renewable energies. We drew two primary conclusions from the simulation results. First, the environmental policies examined could help reduce the emissions of most kinds of pollutants, but also negatively affect GDP. GDP loss by 2030 would be 0.03% in the low environmental tax scenario (LowET), 0.06% in the high environmental tax scenario (HighET), 0.16% in the low environmental tax and low carbon tax scenario (LowETC), and 0.34% in the high environmental tax and high carbon tax scenario (HighETC). SO₂ emissions would decrease by 17.4%, 21.0%, 19.3% and 24.5%, respectively, and CO₂ emissions would reduce by 0.9%, 1.7%, 5.8% and 11.0%. Second, despite the minor changes in the economic impacts, the effectiveness in pollution treatment of environmental tax policies is underestimated if the pollution treatment sectors are disaggregated in the CGE model. Take the SO₂ for an example. The calculated SO₂ reductions will increase from 8.95% to 24.46% after disaggregating the pollution treatment sectors in HighETC scenarios.

Environmental policy, tax, and the target of sustainable development

This paper examines whether governments should adopt stricter environmental policies-such as raising environmental taxes-in closed and open economies. It reconsidered the policy effects of enterprise heterogeneity in an open economy and studied the relationship between environmental policies and sustainable development. In the case of self-sufficiency, it is possible to replace punitive environmental policies with environmental subsidies, which is beneficial to sustainable development. However, when trade is opened up, as less productive enterprises withdraw from local and export markets, the stricter environmental policy is the optimal strategy for environmental and energy sustainable development.

Incorporating health impacts into a differentiated pollution tax rate system: A case study in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in China

This paper argues for an efficient pollution tax rate system that reflects the differentiation of marginal health damages of the individual emission sources. Although China is the first country in the world to launch a regionally differentiated pollution tax rate program, due to the absence of marginal damage estimation, whether this policy is efficient and equitable remains unknown. In this paper, we build an Integrated Assessment Model to measure the marginal damage of SO2, NOx and PM2.5 emitted from 38 coal-fired power plants in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and evaluate the policy performance of tax rate systems with different differentiation magnitudes. Results show that the spatial variations are huge, the range of marginal health damages of coal-fired power plants in the BTH region between the lowest and highest emission source is $2375 to $33245 per ton for SO2, $307 to $4984 per ton for NOx, and $11513 - $163126 per ton for PM2.5. Shifting from the uniform tax rate system to the current partially differentiated tax rate system will increase the total health benefits by 51.6% but with some regions worse-off than the uniform tax rate system. If we incorporate the source-specific variations of marginal health damages into the tax rate system, such a fully differentiated tax rate system will further increase the total health benefits of current partially differentiated tax rate system by 43.1% with every region better-off. Furthermore, even though the policy benefits of both differentiated tax rate systems are much more unequally distributed than uniform tax rates, their impacts on environmental inequalities are better than the uniform tax rate system. Because uniform tax rate systems do not offset the original inequalities of environmental health burdens while differentiated tax rate systems achieve this buy efficiently allocate mitigation targets among regions with different burdens.

Improvement of the environmental and operational characteristics of vehicles through decreasing the motor fuel density

The environmental and operational characteristics of motor transport, one of the main consumers of motor fuel and source of toxic emissions, soot, and greenhouse gases, are determined to a large extent by the fuel quality which is characterized by many parameters. Fuel density is one of these parameters and it can serve as an indicator of fuel quality. It has been theoretically substantiated that an increased density of motor fuel has a negative impact both on the environmental and operational characteristics of motor transport. The use of fuels with a high density leads to an increase in carbonization within the engine, adversely affecting the vehicle performance and increasing environmental pollution. A program of technological measures targeted at reducing the density of the fuel used was offered. It includes a solution to the problem posed by changes in the refining capacities ratio and the temperature range of gasoline and diesel fuel boiling, by introducing fuel additives and adding butanes to the gasoline. An environmental tax has been developed which allows oil refineries to have a direct impact on the production of fuels with improved environmental performance, taking into account the need to minimize the density of the fuel within a given category of quality.

Assessment of water ecological carrying capacity under the two policies in Tieling City on the basis of the integrated system dynamics model

Considering the limitation of the traditional method to assess the ecological carrying capacity and the complexity of the water ecological system, we used system dynamics, ANN, and CA-Markov to model a water ecological system. The social component was modeled according to Granger causality test by system dynamics. The natural component consists of the water resource and water environmental capacity, which were forecasted through the prediction of precipitation and change in land use cover. The interaction of the social component and the natural component mainly reflected environmental policies, such as the imposition of an environmental fee and environmental tax based on their values. Simulation results showed the different assessments on water ecological carrying capacity under the two policies. The population grew (2.9 million), and less pollution (86,632.37 t COD and 2854.5 t NH4N) was observed with the imposition of environmental tax compared with the imposition of an environmental fee (2.85 million population, 10,8381 t COD and 3543 t NH4N) at the same GDP level of 585 billion CNY in 2030. According to the causality loop, we discussed the different states under the policies and the reasons that caused the differences in water ecological carrying capacity state. According to game theory, we explained the limitation of the environmental fee policy on the basis of marginal benefit and cost. The externality was cleared up by the environmental tax policy.