@techreport{Sigman2003Taxing,
abstract = {Many states in the US impose taxes on hazardous waste. This
paper conducts an empirical evaluation of the determinants of these taxes
and reviews earlier research on their effects on hazardous waste. Earlier
studies have shown that the taxes affect waste management, but my
results and other evidence suggest that the tax-induced changes may not
have improved welfare.
Taxes on industrial hazardous waste are one of the most extensive
uses of pollution taxes in the United States. The federal government and
many states governments have implemented such taxes. The diversity of
hazardous waste taxes makes them an interesting example of pollution
taxes because we can compare the responses of polluters to different tax
regimes.
In this paper, I discuss the existing state and federal hazardous
waste taxes and issues in their design and implementation. The paper
then presents an empirical analysis of the tax rates adopted by states. In
particular, the question is: do these taxes reflect the environmental costs
of waste as opposed to other government objectives? Although an earlier
study (Levinson, 2003) examines determinants of tax rates, the analysis
here expands the hypothesized sources of variation and emphasizes the
role of external costs. The results provide some evidence that taxes vary
with environmental costs \textendash{} making it possible that they improve welfare \textendash{} but also point to non-environmental determinants and much
unexplained variation.
I then review the literature on the empirical effects of these taxes on pollution and economic behavior. Studies have found only small effects
of the state taxes, but these effects indicate that waste generators and
managers do respond to the incentives created by taxes. The following
section evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of existing taxes on
hazardous waste and proposes some alternatives. A final section briefly
concludes with an assessment of the U.S. experience with these taxes.},
author = {Hilary Sigman},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {330; Sonderabfall; \"{O}kosteuer; L\"{a}ndersteuer; Vereinigte Staaten},
language = {eng},
number = {2003,06},
title = {Taxing hazardous waste : the US experience},
type = {Working papers / Rutgers University, Department of Economics},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/23164},
year = {2003}
}
