This book provides a comprehensive discussion on the effectiveness of environmentally related taxes and their potential for wider use.

Many problems prevent the widespread implementation of environmental taxes. This overview offers an economic analysis and practical policy suggestions, with numerous examples including designing the instrument, using the revenue, making the tax acceptable, and the ethical issues.

ÔIngeniously organized in a life cycle format, the Handbook covers environmental taxation concepts, design, acceptance, implementation, and impact. The universal themes discussed in each area will appeal to a broad range of readers.Õ Ð Larry Kreiser, Cleveland State University, US ÔThis book is a smart and useful readerÕs guide providing analytical tools for a full comprehension of environmental taxes, with an interdisciplinary approach that looks at all the different phases of environmental taxation: from the design to the implementation, the political acceptance and the impact on the economy. The authorsÕ effort is very successful in endowing academicians, policy makers and the general public with an excellent proof of the effectiveness of environmental taxes and green tax reforms.Õ Ð Alberto Majocchi, University of Pavia, Italy ÔPutting the words ÒenvironmentÓ next to ÒtaxationÓ might not always be the flavour of the month, but no modern society can ignore the value of the natural environment and the need to maintain its good quality and no competitive economy can prosper without the necessary tax revenues to function. Environmental taxation offers the prospect of moving towards a more resource-efficient economy, where preference is given to tax more what we burn, less what we earn. I welcome this contribution to the literature.Õ Ð Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, European Commission ÔThe Milne and Andersen volume provides a splendid treatment of environmental taxation that encompasses the basic conceptual issues, problems of tax design and implementation, and several insightful case studies that show how environmental taxes actually work in practice. It is the best overall treatment of environmental taxation available: comprehensive, rigorous, and readable.Õ Ð Wallace Oates, University of Maryland, US The Handbook of Research on Environmental Taxation captures the state of the art of research on environmental taxation. Written by 36 specialists in environmental taxation from 16 countries, it takes an interdisciplinary and international approach, focusing on issues that are universal to using taxation to achieve environmental goals. The Handbook explores the conceptual foundations of environmental taxation, essential elements for designing environmental tax measures, factors that influence the acceptance of environmental taxation, the variety of ways to implement environmental taxes, their environmental and economic impact and, finally, the larger question of the role of taxation among other policy approaches to environmental protection. Intermixing theory with case studies, the Handbook offers readers lessons that can be applied around the world. It identifies key bodies of research for people who are already working in the field or entering the field and highlights issues that call for more research in the future. With systematic analysis of key issues in environmental taxation, this book will appeal to researchers, governments, think tanks, NGOs, and academics in law, economics, political science and public finance, as well as students specializing in environmental taxation and other market-based instruments.

Environmental policy is high on the political agenda in many countries. Considering the various dimensions of environmental quality as public goods, Sandmo identifies the failures of the market mechanism in the face of environmental problems and shows how economic policy should be designed to overcome them. Specific topics covered include the assessment of environmental benefits and costs, the choice between taxes and quotas as policy tools, the principles of environmental taxation in a second-best world, the various notions of the double dividend from environmental tax reform, and international aspects of environmental policy as well as its political economy ramifications. The treatment is mainly theoretical, but the emphasis throughout is on showing how theory can be relevant to the rational design of economic policy.

This paper develops a two-period overlapping-generations model with environmental externalities and uncertain lifetimes, and studies how two sources of population aging, greater longevity and a lower rate of population growth, affect the politically determined environmental tax and the quality of the environment. It is shown that greater longevity and a lower rate of population growth have entirely different effects on these factors; greater longevity has no effect on the environmental tax and has a non-positive effect on the environmental quality, whereas a lower rate of population growth has a negative effect on the tax and has a positive effect on the quality. In addition, the political decision-making on the tax leads to an inefficient allocation of capital and environmental quality.

Since the 1980's, market-based instruments for environmental policy have become increasingly important. Focusing on environmental taxation in practice, this volume collects key contributions on a wide range of topics, including comparisons of environmental taxation schemes in different countries, political economy issues and key aspects of concrete implementation. It presents a wealth of ex-ante and ex-post analyses, intended as a source of guidance for policy implementation and research. The volume features a full-length introduction locating the literature on environmental taxation in practice in a wider context of theoretical and applied issues.