Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213593 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
ifo Working Paper No. 319
Publisher: 
ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, Munich
Abstract: 
This paper examines how income inequality can affect the polarization of heterogeneous party platforms on climate policy (here: carbon tax). The implied consequences for the uncertainty of climate policy can be relevant for risk-averse investors in "green" technologies. Households are heterogeneous with respect to income and preferences for environmentalism and preferred redistribution. A static gametheoretic model of two-dimensional political competition on a carbon tax (with distributional implications) and an income tax is combined with a model of a carbonintensive economy. For a higher inequality of pre-tax income and/or a higher salience of the issue of redistribution, polarization of the parties' carbon tax proposals in the equilibrium can increase - even if the income tax is used to counteract the increase in income inequality. This result does not depend on the progressivity of the carbon-tax revenue recycling mechanism.
Subjects: 
Climate policy
inequality
political economy
multidimensional political competition
JEL: 
H23
P16
Q52
Q54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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