Environmental Economics

A higher gas tax isn't a tax increase in Kentucky

Here is another example of state reliance on gas tax revenues ... and a silly recalcitrance to raise taxes, any taxes, any amount as Kentucky politicians pull an all-nighter to agree on a budget (Bridges, gas tax ...): One unresolved iss...

Friedman follows up on the NYT gas tax poll

Yesterday we mentiond the NYTimes gas tax poll, today Tom Friedman writes about it (Who's Afraid of a Gas Tax, $$$): My gut told me this was the case, but it's great to see it confirmed by the latest New York Times/CBS News poll: America...

“Gas Taxes and Oil Subsidies: Time for Reform”

Jeffrey Frankel at Econbrowser: World oil prices have been highly volatile during the last decade. Over the past year they have fallen more than 50%. Should we root for prices to go up, down, or stay the same? The economic effects of...

Solution to the cigarette tax differential problem

I'm always on the lookout for reasons to advocate a gas tax. Sometimes it is a reach, sometimes it is not. Today, it is a reach: a gas tax can help reduce smoking.

A price floor for U.S. gas

Maximilian Auffhammer at the energy blog with no name: ... The national average price for gasoline is $1.80 this week, with a minimum of $1.29 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The external costs for a gallon of gasoline, as estimated in a now clas...

Tom Friedman's gas tax

Tom Friedman, in his NYTimes column from 9/21 (Bush's Waterlogged Halo, $$$), says:Imagine - I know it is a stretch - that the president announced tomorrow that he wanted an immediate 50-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax - the "American Renewa...

Two from Economic Inquiry (July 2015) on gas prices and saving lives

Paul J. Burke and Shuhei Nishitateno: This study utilizes data for 144 countries from 1991 to 2010 to present the first international estimates of the gasoline price elasticity of road fatalities. We instrument each country's gasolin...

...or we could just increase the gas tax

Interesting results, but the policy recommendations seem like killing an ant with a sledgehammer. In the first study of its kind, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researcher Alan Meier, working with Yuche Chen of t...

Congressional Budget Office suggests a vehicle miles traveled 'charge'--but there's an easier way

In a presentation titled "Alternatives for Making Federal Highway Spending More Productive," a Congressional Budget economist proposes three approaches to improving methods for spending on highway infrastructure: To make federal highw...

Social cost of gasoline

An env-econ reader asks about a monetary estimate of the social costs of gasoline. I became excited about developing what is almost sure to be a somewhat bogus back-of-the-envelope estimate and using it as a front to pursue the gas tax p...