Greening the Budget Budgetary Policies for Environmental Improvement

About this book

Greening the Budget regards the fundamental cause of environmental degradation as government and market failure and proposes the use of budgets as an instrument of environmental policy to rectify this problem. The book focuses on the elements of the public budget which currently affect the environment and explores the scope for greening both revenue and expenditure through specific measures. The authors begin by considering the effects of removing environmentally damaging subsidies and the potential for correcting the market failure by way of appropriate pricing. They go on to examine the introduction of new taxes following the "polluter pays" principle and, in contrast, the allocation of incentives for those who take the environmentally preferred course of action. They also explore the environmental and budgetary implications of European Union financial transfers by looking at a case study of the agricultural sector. The book concludes by addressing public purchasing and administration. This book should be of interest and value to scholars of environmental economics, researchers involved in environmental policy, and environmental consultants, practitioners and policymakers.

Contents

Part 1 Environmentally damaging subsidies: can we tell a perverse subsidy if we see one?, Jan Pieters and Helen Mountford; the perversity of government subsidies for energy and water, Andre de Moot and Cees van Beers; promoting green budget reforms in the USA - the experience of Friends of the Earth, Gawain Kripke; green budget reform - case study of Slovenia, Kai Schlegelmilch and Tanja Markovic-Hribernik. Part 2 Taxes and charges: evaluating environmental taxes - recent experiences and proposals for the future, Stefan Speck and Paul Ekins; a review of environmentally damaging tax concessions in Germany, Ursula Triebswetter; energy subsidies in Germany, Bettina Meyer; designing a land use tax, Kilian Bizer; Italian waste management - comparing revenues from a general tax with a quantity related fee, Luciano Messori. Part 3 Subsidies for environmental purposes: the provision of public goods - sending the right price signals, Erik Romstad; technical potential for CO2 emissions reductions and the scope for subsidies, Johan Albrecht; assessing subsidies in a second-best world - the case of forestry in Ireland, J. Peter Clinch. Part 4 European financial transfers: economic instruments for agri-environmental policy - what, when and what for?, Dominic Hogg; European Union agri-environmental policy - issus and potentials, Frank J. Convery et al; subsidies to the farming sector - who receives direct payment in Ireland?, Susan Scott. Part 5 Public purchasing and administration: the case of public purchasing and green procurement at the municipal level - the local and the European dimension, Arndt Mielisch and Christoph Erdmenger; co-operative procurement - market transformation for energy-efficient products, Katrin Ostertag and Carsten Dreher.

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