{"title":"Climate policy and optimal public debt","authors":"Maximilian Kellner, Marco Runkel","doi":"10.1007/s10797-023-09814-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Employing a two-period model with an environmental externality, this paper investigates the relation between emission taxation and the optimal level of public debt. The central insight is that the effect of emission taxation on optimal borrowing is ambiguous and may lead to lower or higher optimal debt. In the context of climate change, we even show that the counterintuitive result of a higher optimal debt level is likely in the short-run and possibly also in the long-run, a result that provides a novel rationale for public borrowing. Our basic arguments turn out to be robust against several generalization.</p>","PeriodicalId":47518,"journal":{"name":"International Tax and Public Finance","volume":"2014 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Tax and Public Finance","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10797-023-09814-9","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Employing a two-period model with an environmental externality, this paper investigates the relation between emission taxation and the optimal level of public debt. The central insight is that the effect of emission taxation on optimal borrowing is ambiguous and may lead to lower or higher optimal debt. In the context of climate change, we even show that the counterintuitive result of a higher optimal debt level is likely in the short-run and possibly also in the long-run, a result that provides a novel rationale for public borrowing. Our basic arguments turn out to be robust against several generalization.
期刊介绍:
INTERNATIONAL TAX AND PUBLIC FINANCE publishes outstanding original research, both theoretical and empirical, in all areas of public economics. While the journal has a historical strength in open economy, international, and interjurisdictional issues, we actively encourage high-quality submissions from the breadth of public economics.The special Policy Watch section is designed to facilitate communication between the academic and public policy spheres. This section includes timely, policy-oriented discussions. The goal is to provide a two-way forum in which academic researchers gain insight into current policy priorities and policy-makers can access academic advances in a practical way. INTERNATIONAL TAX AND PUBLIC FINANCE is peer reviewed and published in one volume per year, consisting of six issues, one of which contains papers presented at the annual congress of the International Institute of Public Finance (refereed in the usual way). Officially cited as: Int Tax Public Finance