MARC Record from Library of Congress

LEADER: 02856nam a22002897a 4500
001 2011657331
003 DLC
005 20111129175126.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 111129s2011 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2011657331
040 $aDLC$cDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aKnittel, Christopher R.
245 10 $aCleaning the bathwater with the baby$h[electronic resource] :$bthe health co-benefits of carbon pricing in transportation /$cChristopher R. Knittel, Ryan Sandler.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2011.
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 17390
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 11/29/2011.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the US have relied on Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards and Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS). Economists often argue that these policies are inefficient relative to carbon pricing because they ignore existing vehicles and do not adequately reduce the incentive to drive. This paper presents evidence that the net social costs of carbon pricing are significantly less than previous thought. The bias arises from the fact that the demand elasticity for miles travelled varies systematically with vehicle emissions; dirtier vehicles are more responsive to changes in gasoline prices. This is true for all four emissions for which we have data-nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, and greenhouse gases-as well as weight. This reduces the net social costs associated with carbon pricing through increasing the co-benefits. Accounting for this heterogeneity implies that the welfare losses from $1.00 gas tax, or a $110 per ton of CO2 tax, are negative over the period of 1998 to 2008 even when we ignore the climate change benefits from the tax. Co-benefits increase by over 60 percent relative to ignoring the heterogeneity that we document. In addition, accounting for this heterogeneity raises the optimal gas tax associated with local pollution, as calculated by Parry and Small (2005), by as much as 57 percent. While our empirical setting is California, we present evidence that the effects may be larger for the rest of the US"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
700 1 $aSandler, Ryan.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 17390.
856 40 $uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w17390