The E-axes Forum on Climate Change, Macroeconomics, and Finance

Owen A. Kay

“Pollution Taxes and Clean Subsidies in an Open Economy”

Event description

Young Scholars' Webinar on Climate Finance and Economics

From the abstract:

In open economies, the effectiveness of carbon taxes is diminished by “pollution leakage,” where some polluting activity shifts abroad because of the tax. This paper shows that the same conditions that lead to pollution leakage enhance the efficacy of clean subsidies. As a result, the optimal policy in an open economy combines a pollution tax and a clean subsidy, the balance of which depends on the leakage rate. Furthermore, efficient policy sets the sum of the tax and subsidy rates, a measure of policy ambition, equal to the marginal damages from pollution, and does not depend on the leakage rate.

Moderator:

Diego Känzig
Assistant Professor, Northwestern University

Organizing Committee

Michael Barnett, WP Carey School of Business
Diego Känzig, Northwestern University
Alissa Kleinnijenhuis, Cornell University
Pari Sastry, The Wharton School
Ishita Sen, Harvard Business School
Conor Walsh, Columbia Business School

Owen A. Kay

Owen A. Kay is a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working on the energy team in the Research Department.
His research interests are in Energy and Environmental Economics and Public Finance. He received his Ph.D. in Economics and Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Owen A. Kay

Research Economist
Owen A. Kay is a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working on the energy team in the Research Department.
His research interests are in Energy and Environmental Economics and Public Finance. He received his Ph.D. in Economics and Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Paper and slides

Pollution Taxes and Clean Subsidies in an Open Economy (Paper)

Pollution Taxes and Clean Subsidies in an Open Economy (Slides)

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