Ichiroh Daitoh

Bio: Ichiroh Daitoh is an academic researcher from Tohoku University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Unemployment & Tax rate. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 18 publications receiving 132 citations. Previous affiliations of Ichiroh Daitoh include Keio University.

Environmental Protection and Urban Unemployment: Environmental Policy Reform in a Polluted Dualistic Economy

Abstract: This paper explores sufficient conditions for the welfare-improving environmental policy reform in the Harris-Todaro economy. A rise in the pollution tax rate in the urban manufacturing has on the two labor market distortions: The manufacturing employment and the urban unemployment. If both are weakened the welfare improves. Otherwise, we need to develop an alternative sufficient condition. It is shown that there exists a range of welfare-improving pollution tax rates, and that it corresponds to the lower values of tax rate. This range may by the wage subsidy policy and the technological change toward pollution-intensive techniques.

Environmental protection and urban unemployment: Environmental policy reform in a polluted dualistic economy

Abstract: This paper explores sufficient conditions for the welfare-improving environmental policy reform in the Harris–Todaro economy. A rise in the pollution tax rate in the urban manufacturing has spillover effects on the two labor market distortions: the less-than-optimal manufacturing employment and the urban unemployment. If both are weakened the welfare improves. Otherwise, we need to develop an alternative sufficient condition. It is shown that there exists a range of welfare-improving pollution tax rates, and that it corresponds to the lower values of tax rate. This range may shrink by the wage subsidy policy and the technological change toward less pollution-intensive techniques.

Environmental Protection and Trade Liberalization in a Small Open Dual Economy

Abstract: The author investigates the conditions under which environmental protection and trade liberalization might improve urban unemployment and welfare in a small open Harris–Todaro model with polluting urban manufacturing. While a tariff reduction decreases manufacturing employment, a rise in the pollution tax rate may increase it when a dirty input is complementary to capital. Environmental protection and trade liberalization are consistent in reducing the level of urban unemployment because they lower it under the same condition. They are consistent in increasing GDP if a rise in the pollution tax rate decreases manufacturing employment. Otherwise, trade liberalization will mitigate a decrease in GDP because of environmental protection if the degree of urbanization is low and if rural technology exhibits weak diminishing returns to labor. This GDP effect plays a central role in welfare improvement.

The Optimal Environmental Tax and Urban Unemployment in an Open Economy

Abstract: This paper investigates how a rise in the urban pollution tax rate may affect urban unemployment and welfare in a small open Harris–Todaro (HT) model with intersectoral capital mobility. First, by formulating urban pollution as a dirty input in manufacturing, we find that an increase in the urban pollution tax rate can increase the level of urban unemployment even with intersectoral capital mobility. That is, the optimistic finding by Rapanos (2007) that environmental protection policy reduces urban unemployment in the long run does not always hold. Second, the (sub)optimal pollution tax rate under urban unemployment is higher than the Pigouvian tax rate (the marginal damage of pollution). This result opposes those of Beladi and Chao (2006) for a closed HT economy and that of Tsakiris et al. (2008) for an open HT economy with sector-specific capital.

Financial liberalization, urban unemployment and welfare: some implications of the artificial low interest rate and the high wage rate policies in LDCs

Abstract: This paper investigates how the low interest rate policy in the commercial banking sector affects the urban unemployment in a small open Harris-Todaro model. The rate of urban unemployment unambiguously declines. The volume of it shrinks if the rural-to-urban employment rate and the urban unemployment rate are sufficiently high relative to the wage elasticity of agricultural labor demand. The national income increases if agriculture is dominant in the domestic production. In such an economy, the “financial liberalization” advocated by the Mckinnon-Shaw school may aggravate the welfare even if it eliminates the “financial repression”.

Terms of Trade Disturbances, Real Exchange Rates and Welfare: The Role of Capital Controls and Labor Market Distortions

Abstract: Many arguments that have been advanced in favor of maintaining capital control within the EEC have not paid sufficient attention to the welfare consequences of this type of market intervention. Our paper provides a simple, optimizing framework in which the welfare consequences of capital controls can be assessed. Two main issues are considered. First, how do capital controls affect the adjustment of macroeconomic variables to real disturbances? Second, what is the nature of second best arguments for maintaining capital controls given that certain distortions will remain after the European single market is in place in 1992?

Urban Pollution, Unemployment and National Welfare in a Dualistic Economy

Abstract: This paper undertakes a comparative static analysis in the Harris-Todaro (H-T) model by accommodating local pollution. Unlike in the classical H-T model where migration proceeds in response to urban-rural differences in expected earnings, we consider labor movement taking place according to the difference in utility, which is influenced by the quality of the local environment. The paradoxical result is that an improvement in pollution-abatement technology gives rise to an increase in urban unemployment and has no effect on the workers' aggregate welfare.

Are Carbon Taxes Good for the Poor? A General Equilibrium Analysis for Vietnam

Abstract: We evaluate effects of an environmental tax using a general equilibrium model linked to a household database. The burden of the tax, applied mainly to energy, is passed forward by non-tradable industries and backward by tradable industries facing fixed world prices. The tax is thus equivalent to a real exchange rate appreciation, and since export industries are labor-intensive, reduces employment and increases poverty, especially when labor supply is responsive to wages. The use of revenues to increase transfers to households can offset poverty increases, but does not create jobs; thus the tax will likely conflict with other development policy objectives.

Are Carbon Taxes Good for the Poor? A General Equilibrium Analysis for Vietnam

Abstract: Summary We evaluate effects of an environmental tax using a general equilibrium model linked to a household database. The burden of the tax, applied mainly to energy, is passed forward by non-tradable industries and backward by tradable industries facing fixed world prices. The tax is thus equivalent to a real exchange rate appreciation, and since export industries are labor-intensive, reduces employment, and increases poverty, especially when labor supply is responsive to wages. The use of revenues to increase transfers to households can offset poverty increases, but does not create jobs; thus the tax will likely conflict with other development policy objectives.

Environmental Protection and Urban Unemployment: Environmental Policy Reform in a Polluted Dualistic Economy

Abstract: This paper explores sufficient conditions for the welfare-improving environmental policy reform in the Harris-Todaro economy. A rise in the pollution tax rate in the urban manufacturing has on the two labor market distortions: The manufacturing employment and the urban unemployment. If both are weakened the welfare improves. Otherwise, we need to develop an alternative sufficient condition. It is shown that there exists a range of welfare-improving pollution tax rates, and that it corresponds to the lower values of tax rate. This range may by the wage subsidy policy and the technological change toward pollution-intensive techniques.