Publication
Pollution versus inequality: tradeoffs for fiscal policy (2025), with Thomas Seegmuller, Macroeconomic Dynamics. Available online.
Abstract: This paper investigates the effect of taxation of polluting products and redistribution on pollution, income and welfare inequalities. We consider a two-sector Ramsey model with a green and a polluting good, two types of households and a subsistence level of consumption for the polluting good. The environmental tax is always effective in reducing pollution regardless of the level of subsistence consumption. However, this level, together with the redistribution rate, matters at the individual level as it shapes the impact of the environmental policy on individual consumption and welfare. Looking at the stability properties of the economy, a high subsistence level of polluting consumption leads to instability or indeterminacy of the steady state, while the environmental externality reduces the scope for indeterminacy. Increasing the tax rate and redistributing more to the worker affect the occurrence of indeterminacy and instability. Considering the subsistence level of consumption and the level of redistribution among households are of importance as it determines the effects of environmental tax policy in the long term and the stability of the economy in the short term.
Presentation: FIRE Workshop 2021 (Marseille, France), ASSET Conference 2021 (Marseille, France), AMSE PhD Seminar (Online), LORDE Workshop 2022 (Rouen, France), ICMAIF 2022 (Rethymno, Crete), SURED 2022 (Ascona, Switzerland), EAERE 2022 (Rimini, Italy), FAERE 2022 (Rouen, France)
Work in progress
Taxing incognito: optimal climate policy and inequality. Draft available soon.
Abstract: This paper explores optimal alternatives to carbon taxation using already existing taxes in the economy and their impact on inequality. I build a two-sector Ramsey model with heterogeneous agents and a climate component, in which climate damages harm the final good sector's productivity and individual utility through temperature changes. I find that there exists an alternative to the standard carbon tax, both in a first- and second-best setting. Under this alternative, the carbon tax on emissions is replaced by a tax on total energy production and a subsidy to abatement. The impact on inequality is the same as a carbon tax. Studying a third-best policy in which the government also has constraints on the level of the subsidy to abatement, I find that the entire tax schedule is impacted. This creates additional distortions on income taxes and hence on inequality.
Presentation: AMSE PhD Seminar 2023 (Marseille, France), LORDE Workshop 2023 (Paris, France), CORE Brownbag Seminar (UCLouvain), SEEMS Seminar (UvA), LAGV 2023 (Marseille, France), ASSET 2023 (Lisbon, Portugal), Majvik workshop 2024 (Masala, Finland)
Reverse education and endogenous green preferences in environmental policies. [Draft]
Abstract: This paper studies the impact of education of younger generations on pro-environmental behaviors of older ones. I develop an overlapping generation model with a two-sided socialization to environmental types. Environmental preferences are endogenous and result from socialization from children to parents. Adults decide whether to engage in private mitigation and the government taxes polluting production to fund education and public mitigation. I show that the efficiency of school in transmitting green values is key to improve environmental preferences. The impact on preferences affects the effectiveness of an education policy on private mitigation, both at the intensive and extensive margins. The effect on environmental quality depends on the impact on preferences and the policy mix. This means that education alone cannot improve environmental quality, even though it increases pro-environmental behaviors: a policy mix is needed for an effective environmental policy.
Presentation: LORDE 2025 Workshop (Marseille, France), Helsinki GSE Environmental Economics seminar, NAERE 2025 Workshop (Copenhaguen, Denmark), IREGE Seminar (Annecy, France), EENR 2026 Conference (Orléans, France)*
*scheduled