The benefits of action on implementing carbon taxation in Ireland: a demand system approach

We employ the Affine Stone Index demand system and Irish data to quantify the distributional effects of additional carbon taxes, taking into account the monetary benefits of action. We estimated the avoided economic damages from climate change, and the monetary value of the avoided emissions using willingness to pay from the literature. When these benefits of action are included in the metric for tax incidence, the tax burden decreases considerably. In addition, when the benefits disproportionately benefit low income households, carbon taxes are no longer regressive. We also analyze a flat and a pro-poor revenue allocation. We found that while these instruments reduce vertical inequalities (i.e. across income levels), they can increase horizontal inequalities (within income levels). We show that these instruments can reduce the environmental savings attributed to the additional carbon tax. However, this problem can be minimized by a partial allocation of additional revenues.