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You are looking at 1 - 10 of 16 items for :

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Cross-Border Impacts of Climate Policy Packages in North America
Jean-Marc Fournier, Tannous Kass-Hanna, Liam Masterson, Anne-Charlotte Paret, and Sneha D Thube
We quantify cross-border effects of the recent climate mitigation policies introduced in Canada and the U.S., using the global general equilibrium model IMF-ENV. Notably, with the substantial emission reductions from Canada’s carbon tax-led mitigation policies and the U.S.’ Inflation Reduction Act, these two countries would bridge two-thirds of the gap toward their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) goals. While the broadly divergent policies are believed to elicit competitiveness concerns, we find the aggregate cross-border effects within North America to be very limited and restricted to the energy intensive and trade exposed industries. Potential carbon leakages are also found to be negligible. A more meaningful difference triggered by policy heterogeneity is rather domestic, especially with U.S. subsidies increasing energy output while the Canada model with a carbon tax would marginally decrease it. This analysis is complemented by a stylized model illustrating how such divergence can affect the terms of trade, but also how these effects can be countered by exchange rate flexibility, border adjustments or domestic taxation.
Keywords:
Climate Policy; Climate Change Policy; Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); Mitigation; Climate subsidies; Carbon Tax; Carbon pricing; Spillovers; North America; Global; IMF-ENV model; Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models; Competitiveness; Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG); Revenue Recycling; Inflation Reduction Act (IRA); Power; Electricity; climate policy package; mitigation policy; green subsidy; Canada's Carbon pricing policy; divergent policy
Cover IMF Working Papers
Carbon Prices and Inflation in the Euro Area
Maximilian Konradt, Thomas McGregor, and Frederik G Toscani
What is the effect of carbon pricing on inflation? This paper shows empirically that the consequences of the European Union’s Emission Trading System (ETS) and national carbon taxation on inflation have been limited in the euro area, so far. This result is supported by analysis based on a panel local projections approach, as well as event studies based on individual countries. Our estimates suggest that carbon taxes raised the price of energy but had limited effects on overall consumer prices. Since future climate policy will need to be much more ambitious compared to what has been observed so far, including the need for larger increases in carbon prices, possible non-linearities might make extrapolating from historical results difficult. We thus also use input-output tables to simulate the mechanical effect of a carbon tax consistent with the EU’s ‘Fit-for-55’ commitments on inflation. The required increase of effective carbon prices from around 40 Euro per ton of CO2 in 2021 to around 150 Euro by 2030 could raise annual euro area inflation by between 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points. It is worth noting that the energy price increases caused by the rise in the effective carbon price to 150 Euro is substantially smaller than the energy price spike seen in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
Keywords:
Green transition; carbon taxes; climate policy; inflation; energy price spike; EU ETS price; European Union's Emission Trading System; headline inflation; EU ETS; price level; Carbon tax; Greenhouse gas emissions; Consumer prices; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Mitigating Climate Change at the Firm Level: Mind the Laggards
Damien Capelle, Divya Kirti, Nicola Pierri, and German Villegas Bauer
Using self-reported data on emissions for a global sample of 4,000 large, listed firms, we document large heterogeneity in environmental performance within the same industry and country. Laggards—firms with high emissions relative to the scale of their operations—are larger, operate older physical capital stocks, are less knowledge intensive and productive, and adopt worse management practices. To rationalize these findings, we build a novel general equilibrium heterogeneous-firm model in which firms choose capital vintages and R&D expenditure and hence emissions. The model matches the full empirical distribution of firm-level heterogeneity among other moments. Our counter-factual analysis shows that this heterogeneity matters for assessing the macroeconomic costs of mitigation policies, the channels through which policies act, and their distributional effects. We also quantify the gains from technology transfers to EMDEs.
Keywords:
Climate Change; Productivity; Technology Adoption; Capital Vintages; Emissions; R&D expenditure; capital vintage; management practice; emission intensity; emission Intensity; Carbon tax; Greenhouse gas emissions; Consumption; Stocks; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Cryptocarbon: How Much Is the Corrective Tax?
Mr. Shafik Hebous and Nate Vernon
With increasing awareness of past environmental damage from crypto mining, questions arise as to how persistent the problem will be in the future and how taxation can help in addressing this negative externality. We estimate that the global demand for electricity by crypto miners reached that of Australia or Spain, resulting in 0.33% of global CO2 emissions in 2022. Projections suggest sustained future electricity demand and indicate further increases in CO2 emissions if crypto prices significantly increase and the energy efficiency of mining hardware is low. To address global warming, we estimate the corrective excise on the electricity used by crypto miners to be USD 0.045 per kWh, on average. Considering also air pollution costs raises the tax to USD 0.087 per kWh. Country-specific estimates vary depending on their electricity sources.
Keywords:
Corrective Taxes; Carbon Tax; Mitigation Policy; Crypto Assets; Crypto Mining; Bitcoin; electricity demand; corrective tax; energy efficiency of mining hardware; pollution cost; Bitcoin price; Greenhouse gas emissions; Electricity; Mining sector; Virtual currencies; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Impact of Climate Policy on Oil and Gas Investment: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
Mr. Christian Bogmans, Mr. Andrea Pescatori, and Ervin Prifti
Using a text-based firm-level measure of climate policy exposure, we show that climate policies have led to a global decline of 6.5 percent in investment among publicly traded oil and gas companies between 2015 and 2019, with European companies experiencing the most significant impact. Similarly, climate policy uncertainty has also had a negative impact. Results support the Neoclassical investment model, which predicts a pre-emptive cut in investment in reaction to downward shifts in prospective demand, in contrast with the “green paradox” that predicts an increase in current investment to shift production toward the present.
Keywords:
Fossil fuel phase out; Paris Agreement; energy transition; DiD; climate policy uncertainty; gas investment; investment model; climate policy exposure; gas firm; Climate policy; Oil sector; Climate change; Oil prices; Carbon tax; Global
Cover World Economic Outlook, October 2022
World Economic Outlook, October 2022
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.

Abstract

Global economic activity is experiencing a broad-based and sharper-than-expected slowdown, with inflation higher than seen in several decades. The cost-of-living crisis, tightening financial conditions in most regions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook. Global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and 2.7 percent in 2023. This is the weakest growth profile since 2001 except for the global financial crisis and the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global inflation is forecast to rise from 4.7 percent in 2021 to 8.8 percent in 2022 but to decline to 6.5 percent in 2023 and to 4.1 percent by 2024. Monetary policy should stay the course to restore price stability, and fiscal policy should aim to alleviate the cost-of-living pressures while maintaining a sufficiently tight stance aligned with monetary policy. Structural reforms can further support the fight against inflation by improving productivity and easing supply constraints, while multilateral cooperation is necessary for fast-tracking the green energy transition and preventing fragmentation.

Keywords:
growth; growth outlook; global recession; adverse scenario; output gap; output losses; COVID-19; pandemic; scarring; inflation; core inflation; inflation expectations; monetary policy; financial conditions; debt distress; sovereign spreads; fiscal policy; disinflation; food and energy prices; Russian gas supplies; pandemic; war in Ukraine; current account; dollar strength; capital flows; China real estate sector; fragmentation; multilateral cooperation; climate change; climate policies; Wages; wage dynamics; wage-price spirals; inflation; labor markets; expectations; monetary policy; interest rates; nominal wages; real wages; unemployment; tightness; supply-demand imbalances; COVID-19; pandemic; recovery; de-anchoring; Phillips curve; pass-through; demand shocks; supply shocks; supply-chain shocks; sectoral shocks; monetary policy shocks; cost-push shocks; expectations formation; rational expectations; adaptive expectations; adaptive learning; historical episodes; advanced economies; emerging market economies; climate policy; monetary policy; inflation; energy transition; carbon pricing; macroeconomic model; GMMET; output-inflation tradeoff; GHG taxes; green subsidies; green investment; inflation expectation; price inflation; wage-price spiral; wage growth; headline inflation; Carbon tax; Greenhouse gas emissions; Global; Europe; Caribbean; Middle East and Central Asia; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa Fragile States: Evidence from Panel Estimations
Mr. Rodolfo Maino and Drilona Emrullahu
Fragile states in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face challenges to respond to the effects of climate shocks and rising temperatures. Fragility is linked to structural weaknesses, government failure, and lack of institutional basic functions. Against this setup, climate change could add to risks. A panel fixed effects model (1980 to 2019) found that the effect of a 1◦C rise in temperature decreases income per capita growth in fragile states in SSA by 1.8 percentage points. Panel quantile regression models that account for unobserved individual heterogeneity and distributional heterogeneity, corroborate that the effects of higher temperature on income per capita growth are negative while the impact of income per capita growth on carbon emissions growth is heterogeneous, indicating that higher income per capita growth could help reduce carbon emissions growth for high-emitter countries. These findings tend to support the hypothesis behind the Environmental Kuznets Curve and the energy consumption growth literature, which postulates that as income increases, emissions increase pari passu until a threshold level of income where emissions start to decline.
Keywords:
climate change; fragile states; climate risk; panel regressions Robustness test; panel quantile regression; panel regression estimate; energy consumption growth literature; quantile panel regression; Climate change; Greenhouse gas emissions; Income; Natural disasters; Carbon tax; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategy for The Netherlands
Nicoletta Batini, Mr. Simon Black, Ms. Oana Luca, and Ian W.H. Parry
The Netherlands has ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for the future - to cut them by 49 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 95 percent by 2050. These targets and the likely new EU-wide targets under the recent EU Green Deal entail a rapid acceleration in decarbonization. This paper discusses the government’s mitigation strategy and advances several recommendations to complement and reinforce that strategy and to achieve better alignement of the effective carbon prices across sectors. The paper discusses alternatives to make the recently-introduced industry carbon levy more effcient and recomends the use of revenue-neutral feebate schemes in industry, transportation, buildings, and agriculture. For power generation, it recommends eliminating taxes on residential and industrial electricity, supplementing the coal phaseout plan with an increase in the CO2 emissions floor price. The impacts of these reforms on consumption would be low and relatively evenly split across the income distribution.
Keywords:
government's mitigation strategy; reduction target; climate mitigation; emission rate; natural gas; Greenhouse gas emissions; Carbon tax; Agricultural sector; Global