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Environmental taxation in a dualistic economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2007

VASSILIS T. RAPANOS
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Athens, 5 Stadiou Street, Athens 105 62, Greece. Tel: +30 210 368 9387 Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In the framework of the Harris–Todaro model we introduce a production–production externality and assume that the activity in the urban sector negatively affects (pollutes) the rural sector. As a means of reducing pollution a tax is imposed on the production of the polluting sector and the distributional and employment effects, as well as the national income aspects of such a tax, are explored. We take two versions of the Harris–Todaro model, the short run, where only labour is mobile between the rural and the urban sector, and the longer run, where all factors of production are intersectorally mobile. Our findings indicate that taxation will reduce pollution, may favour employment in the rural sector, and under certain conditions will also reduce unemployment, particularly in the longer run. National income will be generally enhanced if the share of the agricultural output in national income is higher than the share of manufactures.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to the anonymous referees of this journal for their constructive comments that have contributed in bringing the paper to its present form. Of course, the usual caveat applies.