Lauren Montigue
Pronouns: she/hers
Research Mentor(s): James Hines Jr, Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Economics, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 6 (4pm-4:50pm)
Breakout Room: Room 8
Presenter: 5
Abstract
Carbon taxes come in many forms, but the main two are explicit carbon taxes, where carbon emitted is taxed by volume, and emissions trading systems, where governments give companies permits for how much carbon they can emit. International organizations such as OECD and World Bank have created their own rankings of carbon taxes by country. However, neither of these rankings encompasses every carbon tax. Our study incorporates a broader array of taxes to more accurately measure the performance of a country in reducing its emissions, and thus yield a more accurate ranking. Country-by-country and industry-by-industry statistics on taxation, expenditure, emissions, and product mainly from the OECD database were collected. Carbon tax data was also collected from the OECD’s figures on all environmentally related tax revenue in 2016. Calculations involving the data were performed to evaluate each country’s carbon intensity per currency unit of consumption expenditure, which were compared across countries and across industries. By the end of the semester, we will have a new ranking and a paper written on our methods as well as a comparison of our new ranking to the OECD’s previous ranking. We expect our new ranking to be similar; however, countries in the European Union will likely have higher levels of carbon taxes in our ranking since the OECD does not account for their emissions trading systems. Our goal for this project is to give activists more precise data to lobby their governments to increase carbon taxes and curb the effects of climate change.
Authors: Lauren Montigue
Research Method: Library/Archival/Internet Research
