Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

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Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Framework Convention on Climate Change

The theory of precautionary saving is shown in this paper to be isomorphic to the Arrow-Pratt theory of risk aversion, making possible the application of a large body of knowledge about risk aversion to precautionary saving, and more generally, to the theory of optimal choice under risk In particular, a measure of the strength of precautionary saving motive analogous to the Arrow-Pratt measure of risk aversion is used to establish a number of new propositions about precautionary saving, and to give a new interpretation of the Oreze-Modigliani substitution effect

Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large

Using two strategies, we show that consumers underreact to taxes that are not salient. First, using a field experiment in a grocery store, we find that posting tax-inclusive price tags reduces demand by 8 percent. Second, increases in taxes included in posted prices reduce alcohol consumption more than increases in taxes applied at the register. We develop a theoretical framework for applied welfare analysis that accommodates salience effects and other optimization failures. The simple formulas we derive imply that the economic incidence of a tax depends on its statutory incidence, and that even policies that induce no change in behavior can create efficiency losses. ( JEL C93, D12, H25, H71)

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Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence

Foundations Of Statistics

We consider the design of a tax on greenhouse gas emissions for a developed country such as the United States. We consider three sets of issues: the optimal tax base, issues relating to the rate (including the use of the revenues and rate changes over time) and trade. We show that a well-designed carbon tax can capture about 80% of U.S. emissions by taxing fewer than 3,000 taxpayers and up to almost 90% with a modest additional cost. We recommend full or partial delegation of rate setting authority to an agency to ensure that rates reflect new information about the costs of carbon emmissions and of abatement. Adjustments should be made to the income tax to ensure that a carbon tax is revenue neutral and distributionally neutral. Finally, we propose an origin-based system for trades with countries that have an adequate carbon tax. We suggest a system that imposes presumptive border tax adjustments with the ability of an individual firm to prove that a different rate should apply. The presumptive tax could be based either on average emissions for production of the item by the exporting country or by the importing country.

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The Design of a Carbon Tax

This paper considers whether the original issue discount rules, which require current taxation of interest income regardless of whether it is paid, should be expanded to cover derivative financial instruments. The original issue discount rules were recently expanded to debt instruments with contingent payments (so-called "structured notes"), and commentators have advocated using similar principles to expand the rules to other derivatives. The paper argues that the original issue discount rules should not be expanded beyond their current scope. The current accrual requirement is inconsistent with the realization requirement, and expansion of the current accrual requirement merely moves the place where the rules are inconsistent. Expansion of the original issue discount rules cannot eliminate or even reduce the inconsistency in the law. Using a theory of the most efficient place to draw lines between inconsistent tax rules, the paper argues that current law is superior to an expansion of the original issue discount rules.

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Should the Tax Law Require Current Accrual of Interest on Derivative Financial Instruments

Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Ethically Relevant Facts and Predictions 10 Chapter 2: Policy Instruments 41 Chapter 3: Symbols, Not Substance 59 Chapter 4: Climate Change and Distributive Justice: Climate Change Blinders 73 Chapter 5: Punishing the Wrongdoers: A Climate Guilt Clause? 99 Chapter 6: Equality and the Case against Per Capita Permits 119 Chapter 7: Future Generations: The Debate over Discounting 144 Chapter 8: Global Welfare, Global Justice, and Climate Change 169 A Recapitulation 189 Afterword: The Copenhagen Accord 193 Notes 199 Index 219

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Climate Change Justice

We study various scenarios for taxing emissions of carbon dioxide (C02). The question is how carbon tax policies will perform, given interna tional trade, if countries adopt different tax rates. We investigate this question quantitatively using CIM-EARTH, a newly developed open-source computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Since climate change is a function of global C02 emissions, an efficient strategy for control ling emissions would be to impose the same price wherever they occur. Such an approach presents a free riding problem, however, because nations have an incentive not to comply while gaining the ben efits of reduced emissions elsewhere. Moreover, because of distributive concerns and claims about

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Trade and Carbon Taxes

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David A. Weisbach

Papers

The Design of a Carbon Tax

Should the Tax Law Require Current Accrual of Interest on Derivative Financial Instruments

Climate Change Justice

Trade and Carbon Taxes

An Economic Analysis of Anti-Tax Avoidance Laws