Authors: Frondel, Manuel
Schubert, Stefanie
Title: Carbon pricing in Germany’s road transport and housing sector: Options for reimbursing carbon revenues
Language (ISO): en
Abstract: In 2021, Germany launched a national emissions trading system (ETS) in its road transport and housing sectors that increases the cost burden of consumers of fossil fuels, the major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A promising approach to secure public acceptance for such a carbon pricing would be to entirely reallocate the resulting “carbon” revenues to consumers. This article discusses three alternatives that were discussed in the political arena prior to the introduction of the national carbon pricing: a) a per-capita reallocation to private households, b) the reduction of electricity prices by, e.g., decreasing the electricity tax, as well as c) targeted financial aid for vulnerable consumers, such as increasing housing benefits. To estimate both the revenues originating from carbon pricing and the resulting emission savings, we employ a partial equilibrium approach that is based on price elasticity estimates on individual fossil fuel consumption from the empirical literature. Most effective with respect to alleviating the burden of poor households would be increasing housing benefits. While this measure would not require large monetary resources, we argue that the remaining revenues should be preferably employed to reduce Germany’s electricity tax, which becomes more and more obsolete given the steadily increasing amount of electricity generated by renewable energy technologies.
Subject Headings: electricity tax
distributional effects
housing benefits
Subject Headings (RSWK): Besteuerung
Elektrizität
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2003/40354
http://dx.doi.org/10.17877/DE290R-22229
Issue Date: 2021
Appears in Collections:Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 823

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
DP_1521_SFB823_Frondel_Schubert.pdfDNB276.78 kBAdobe PDFView/Open


This item is protected by original copyright



This item is protected by original copyright rightsstatements.org