Purpose
- Investigates the causes of economic imbalances.
- Explores and develops market-based solutions.
Summary
This project builds on the Niskanen’s Center’s existing expertise on carbon taxes, but creates a new agenda in response to current events. Niskanen's objective is to help facilitate the enactment and implementation of meaningful climate policies in the United States. We aim to achieve that goal by moving Republican elites to embracing climate action as a goal worth pursuing and developing policy approaches that will attract broad coalitional support and meet the climate challenge at its scale. As we continue to develop and promote market-based climate policies, concerns about their ability to achieve equitable and fair outcomes for low-income communities are rising, which requires us to improve our research and policy designs to meet these new demands.
Description
Kyle Pomerleau at American Enterprise Institute will do data modeling and co-authoring a paper with Shuting Pomerleau, Niskanen Center's climate policy analyst. Shuting will be the first author and responsible for a majority of the writing, and should be able to complete the paper with the extension date of June 2023. Kyle will have the paper published in Tax Notes first, then on the Niskanen website. We will look to host an event with to promote the paper in the fall of 2023
The project is on track to be completed by June 2023. It's about 60% done as of April 2023. We have written several sections and Kyle is finalizing the model results. Once the results come out, it will be quick to complete the paper. We are also planning to do an event to promote the paper in September 2023.
At the Niskanen Center, we believe carbon taxation is the best policy to address climate change. This paper will help set up the stage for long-term meaningful policy changes. This paper explores using a carbon tax to fund the permanent expansion of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit and discusses the potential impact on households’ after-tax income distribution and work incentives. The value of the paper is to explore new ways in which a carbon tax's revenue could be used to help gain political support for the policy.
Purpose
The project meets the Foundations’ goals to “investigate the causes of economic imbalances, particularly in relation to ecosystem services, climate change, energy security, food production, and other environmental matters” and to “explore and develop market-based solutions” and “disseminate information on the results and findings.”
Scope
Specifically, the project aims to investigate the ways in which an American response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that does not consider carbon risks could worsen the American contribution to climate change and decrease energy security.
