Changing Prices in a Changing Climate: Electoral Competition and Fossil Fuel Taxation

When do governments increase the price of fossil fuels? Charting the theoretical territory between climate change politics and long-term policymaking, this paper highlights the role of electoral competition in shaping how politicians respond to the intertemporal tradeoff fossil fuel taxation represents. The more secure the government is in office, the more insulated it is from the vagaries of political competition, and the more likely it is to impose costs on constituents today to generate a future stable climate. By influencing governments’ time preferences, competition structures the myopia of elected officials. I test the arguments using an original dataset of gasoline taxation across high-income democracies between 1988-2013. I find evidence that higher levels of competition are associated with lower gasoline tax rates, and that the relationship is moderated by the level of costs imposed on voters, but not government partisanship.

Gasoline Tax Increases in the American States: A Case for Responsive Taxation

This paper analyzes the determinants of legislation to increase state gasoline taxes from 1985 to 2013. It closely considers the motives of the political actors considering adoption, comparing the predictive power responsive government and excessive government theories. It finds strong evidence for responsive governments: traffic fatalities per-capita and the proportion of bridges deemed structurally deficient are among the strongest predictors of state gas tax increases. The conclusion of this paper is that gasoline tax increases in the American states represents a case of responsive taxation.

Implication of Replacing the Federal and State Fuel Taxes with a National Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax

A vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax is often proposed to replace fuel taxes for financing the nation’s highway and road network. In this paper, we investigate households’ driving response to driving cost changes depending on their vehicle choices. Using the empirical estimates, we simulate the vehicle usage, tax burdens, and total tax revenues generated under a possible nationwide revenue-neutral flat VMT tax. Our results confirm that, compared with the current gasoline tax, a revenue-neutral flat VMT tax can be a more stable tax revenue source. We estimate that a 50% increase in average miles per gallon would lead to a 28% decrease in the total revenues raised by the current gasoline tax, while the same amount of increase in fuel economy would increase the VMT tax revenues by 4.4 % (all relative to the 2009 baseline). In the meantime, we find no significant difference between the two types of tax in their total revenues, when the pre-tax gasoline prices fluctuate by different magnitudes. A VMT tax would be slightly more regressive than the gasoline tax, but the difference is negligible. Overall, our simulation shows that VMT tax could serve as a viable alternative to gasoline taxes.

The U.S. Federal Gasoline Tax: Time for a Change?

Although the federal gasoline tax played multiple roles in financing surface transportation infrastructure in the United States, experts did not agree on the tax's purpose. Some argued that it was essentially a fee for users of the nation's federally supported highways. Others suggested that it should play a more prominent role in environmental, energy, and transportation policy by correcting for driving-related externalities. Still others suggested that it should be used to reduce the federal budget deficit. Finally, the tax itself had remained at the same level since 1993, and with the Highway Trust Fund virtually insolvent, many experts believed it was time for an increase. The case presents a background on the U.S. federal gasoline tax, an overview of the market for gasoline in the United States, and survey of gasoline taxes in U.S. states as well as several other countries around the world.The case can be used to discuss the incidence of the gasoline tax, as well as its role as a Pigouvian tax to deal with negative externalities related to gasoline consumption and driving. There is sufficient data in the case to enable students to analyze the incidence of the federal gasoline tax and to determine the socially efficient level of the tax in light of externalities related to gasoline consumption and driving.

Excise Tax Setting in a Dynamic Space-time Framework

This study develops a simple model for analyzing excise tax setting in a competitive framework. Specifically, the model predicts that tax rate competition will vary for different goods based on the relative ease of cross-border shopping. To test the model, this study utilizes a dynamic space-time panel econometric model to quantify the horizontal response function for cigarette, beer, and gasoline tax rates for US states from 1960 to 2007. The empirical findings support the model predictions. Only cigarette tax rates have a horizontal response function statistically different from zero.