TY  - JOUR
AU  - Levinson, Arik
TI  - Energy Efficiency Standards Are More Regressive Than Energy Taxes: Theory and Evidence
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 22956
PY  - 2016
Y2  - December 2016
DO  - 10.3386/w22956
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22956
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22956.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Arik Levinson
Department of Economics ICC 571
Georgetown University
3700 O St., NW
Washington, DC 20057
Tel: 202/687-5571
Fax: 202/687-6102
E-Mail: Arik.Levinson@georgetown.edu
M1  - published as Arik Levinson. "Energy Efficiency Standards Are More Regressive Than Energy Taxes: Theory and Evidence," in Tatyana Deryugina, Don Fullerton, and Billy Pizer, organizers, "Energy Policy Tradeoffs between Economic Efficiency and Distributional Equity" Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, volume 6, number S1 (University of Chicago Press) (2019)

AB  - Economists promote energy taxes as cost-effective. But policymakers raise concerns about their regressivity, or disproportional burden on poorer families, preferring to set energy efficiency standards instead. I first show that in theory, regulations targeting energy efficiency are more regressive than energy taxes, not less. I then provide an example in the context of automotive fuel consumption in the United States: taxing gas would be less regressive than regulating the fuel economy of cars if the two policies are compared on a revenue-equivalent basis.
ER  -