Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/192537 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Papers No. 555
Publisher: 
Statistics Norway, Research Department, Oslo
Abstract: 
The European competition rules restrict governments' opportunity to differentiate terms of energy accessibility among firms and industries. This easily runs counter with regional and industrial goals of national energy policies. Norway levies a tax on use of electricity, but exempts main industrial usages. This analysis assesses alternative, internationally legal, designs of the system in terms of their effects on efficiency and distribution, including industrial objectives. Among the reforms we explore, removing the exemptions would be the most effective way of raising revenue, but it would be politically costly by deteriorating the competitiveness of today's favoured industries. An entire abolishment of the electricity tax, and replacing revenue by increased VAT, would generate a more equal distribution of standard of living and, at the same time, avoid the trade-off between efficiency and competitiveness.
Subjects: 
Tax reform
Multiple policy goals
Computable general equilibrium model
JEL: 
D31
D58
F15
H21
H23
J68
L52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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