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Despite the importance of tax policy in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, there is a dearth of research on the environmental impact of indirect taxes. This paper examines the impact of indirect taxes on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, with an emphasis on institutional quality.

The study uses the Government Revenue Dataset (2021), comprising 143 countries, dividing into 114 developing and 29 developed countries, during the period between 1996 and 2019. The author adopts panel data techniques, with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for the issue of cross-sectional dependence (CSD).

The results indicate that indirect tax revenues have a negative and significant impact on CO₂ emissions for the total sample. The subsample analysis revealed that while indirect taxes reduce carbon emissions in developing countries, opposed results are reported for developed countries. This finding implies that most of the advanced countries have already reached a high level of taxes, at which carbon emissions increase as indirect tax increases further. Interestingly, the results revealed that institutional quality enhances the role of indirect taxes in mitigating carbon emissions for both developing and developed countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the sole study using the newly developed tax data by the United Nations University, World Institute for Development Research (UNU-WIDER) to investigate the impact of indirect taxes on carbon emissions, with an emphasis on institutional quality. The existing literature focuses on specific taxes, like carbon taxes, with no comprehensive research on the link between indirect taxes and carbon emissions.

Environmental degradation resulting from human activities may adversely affect human health in multiple ways. Until now, policies aimed at mitigating environmental problems such as climate change, environmental pollution and damage to biodiversity have failed to clearly identify and drive the potential benefits of these policies on health. The conducted study assesses and demonstrates how specific environmental policies and instruments influence perceived human health in order to ensure input for a data-driven decision process.

The study was conducted for the 2004–2020 period in European Union (EU) countries with the use of dynamic panel data modeling. Verification of specific policies' impact on dependent variables allows to indicate this their effectiveness and importance. As a result of the computed dynamic panel data models, it has been confirmed that a number of significant and meaningful relationships between the self-perceived health index and environmental variables can be identified.

There is a strong positive impact of environmental taxation on the health index, and the strength of this relationship causes effects to be observed in the very short term, even the following year. In addition, the development of renewable energy sources (RES) and the elimination of fossil fuels from the energy mix exert positive, although milder, effects on health. The reduction of ammonia emissions from agriculture and reducing noise pollution are other health-supporting factors that have been shown to be statistically valid. Results allow to identify the most efficient policies in the analyzed area in order to introduce those with the best results or a mix of such measures.

The results of the authors' research clearly indicate the health benefits of measures primarily aimed at improving environmental factors, such as environmental taxes in general. The authors have also discovered an unexpected negative impact of an increase in the share of energy taxes in total taxes on the health index. The presented study opens several possibilities for further investigation, especially in the context of the rapidly changing geopolitical environment and global efforts to respond to environmental and health challenges. The authors believe that the outcome of the authors' study may provide new arguments to policymakers pursuing solutions that are not always easily acceptable by the public.

This paper analyzes the role that the climate change concern (CCC_i) has on the willingness to accept an environmental tax. The author aims to grasp how individual general tax preferences can differ with respect to the specific (environmental) tax. He focuses attention to the Italian case since it has been argued that the potential acceptability of a carbon tax in Italy is relatively high, and this topic has been scarcely explored so far among Italian citizens (Rotaris and Danielis, 2019).

The author conducted an online survey among 514 Italian economics students.

The CCC_i positively influences the environmental tax morale (ETM_i). The general tax morale (TM_i) positively affects the specific (environmental) TM_i. The CCC_i alters individual tax preferences. The author evidenced that also subjects with low TM_i turned out to be willing to pay an environmental tax if aware of the environmental issues.

Although the author used a common methodology in this strand of research, he is aware that in an online survey individuals can be influenced by the self-reporting and hypothetical choice bias (see Swamy et al., 2001), that in turn can characterize their reported preferences. Moreover, even if economics university students are commonly used as a subject pool in experimental economics settings, and although several studies showed that the behavioral responses of students are largely the same as those of nonstudents in identical experiments (for a discussion see Alm, 2012; Choo et al., 2016), there is awareness that in this case, they are not taxpayers yet (Barabas and Jerit, 2010).

The author’s results remark the importance of increasing climate change awareness among people to let them be more willing to pay the environmental tax, for instance through investments in sensibilization campaigns on the importance of energy source usage and climate-related topic. Then, an increase in the general TM_i leads to an increase in the specific (environmental) TM_i. The author’s evidence showed that people with high tax morale logically recognize the positive impact of paying an environmental tax when the CCC_i increases, since the more the theme becomes important, the larger the willingness to pay the specific tax. For this reason, policymakers should carry on campaigns to increase the general level of TM_i to increase the overall tax compliance level and the relative tax revenues, following the guidelines given by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019) to support taxpayer education programs, such as including TM_i research and analysis into education programs, improving the ease of paying taxes or strengthening revenue–expenditure links to build the social contract.

It should be paramount to increase awareness about environmental topics among people in general and among those who are relatively tax immoral. The author’s results remark on the importance of targeting energy and environmental tax policies to groups rather than to individuals. According to this evidence, we support the use of nonmonetary tools to nudge people in the environmental transition by changing their behavior in energy use, for instance through the taxation on fuel and other nonrenewable energy resources.

It is the first empirical study that analyzes the impact of CCC_i on the environmental TM_i in Italy, in particular controlling for the role of the general willingness to pay taxes (TM_i). To obtain individual attitudes toward tax payment, most of the empirical studies in behavioral economics employ international surveys. For studies across citizens living in European countries, the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS) represent the most used ones (see, for instance, Martinez-Vazquez and Torgler (2009) in Spain; Torgler and Werner (2005) in Germany; Nemore and Morone (2019) in Italy). However, these surveys do not allow to study the relationship between the environmental and general TM_i across the same subject pool. In fact, despite the ESS (2016) provides individual responses about the willingness to pay an environmental tax, it does not provide information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment (this information is contained only in the ESS wave of 2004, hence referring to a different subject pool). On the contrary, each wave of the EVS (i.e. 2008, 2017) provides information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment, but this survey does not provide a question regarding the willingness to pay an environmental tax. Therefore, to obtain information about the willingness to pay both general and environmental taxes, across the same subject pool, it is needed to carry out a survey.

The present study aims at quantifying the likely impacts of an environmental tax on macroeconomic variables and pollution in Iran.

The computable general equilibrium model, which allows the prediction of the economy-wide effects of any change in policy instruments, is applied.

The main findings reveal that gross domestic product, private consumption and income in both urban and rural areas will follow a declining trend as a result of environmental tax imposition. In a scenario with the highest level of tax, the predicted percentage change to the gross domestic product and private consumption is estimated at −21.32 and −40.96, respectively. In the same scenario, pollution emissions would decrease by 12.4–22.6% for CO2, CH4 and N2O.

This study uses a general equilibrium model to examine the effects of the carbon tax on environmental issues and household welfare, considering the unique conditions and regulations of Iran. While the related literature examines the CO2 tax, the current study covers more pollutants, including CO2, CH4, N2O, CO, SO2 and NOx. In addition, a distinguishing feature of the current study is that it applies a modified version of the social accounting matrix (SAM) database, which includes the heavy subsidies of energy products. Another significant feature of the current study is that it examines tax policy while tax rates are exerted endogenously (compared to previous studies).

In this study, the author intend to investigate the impacts of renewable energy use and environmental taxation on sustainable development measured by the adjusted net savings (ANS).

This study employs the quantile regression (QR) for a set of 24 Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) countries over the period 1994–2018.

The main empirical findings of estimates show that access to renewable energy and environmental taxation generate positive and significant effects in increasing the ANS for most quantiles. Hence, they are practical tools for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This study has important implications for governments and policymakers of the OECD countries. Therefore, governments can use subsidies and incentives to promote the adoption of renewable energy sources, energy-efficient technologies and sustainable practices. Similarly, by imposing taxes on pollution and resource use, governments can encourage the adoption of cleaner technologies and practices toward more sustainable behavior.

This paper is based on a novel measure of sustainable development (ANS) and a novel econometric method (QR).

In order to achieve sustainable development objectives, safeguard the ecosystem, combat global warming and preserve biodiversity for a more sustainable and secure future, the ecological footprint (EF) must be reduced. Therefore, embracing holistic methods, emphasizing renewable energy (RN) and environmental taxes (ET) is crucial. Therefore, the present study aims to capture the effect of ET and RN on EF in Germany.

To achieve this aim, the novel Fourier-based Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ADL) cointegration and the time and frequency-based connections among the variables are investigated in this work throughout the 1994–2021 time span using the wavelet analytic methods, including wavelet power spectrum (WPS) and wavelet coherence (WC) methods, respectively.

The study’s results express that (1) RN, ET and EF are cointegrated in the long run; (2) EF and RN have volatility; (3) RN use in Germany prevents environmental deterioration and (4) ET decreases EF.

The research findings imply that Germany needs rigorous environmental restrictions and enforcement of alternate energy sources for energy use plans and sustainable production objectives.

To the best of our knowledge, the effect of RN and ET on EF in Germany has not been comprehensively explored by using newly developed econometrics techniques and a single dataset. Therefore, the study provides important policy implementations for the German government and is also likely to open debate on the concept.

This study aims to investigate the association between corporate tax avoidance and environmental costs and disclosure in Indonesia and Australia for the research period 2015–2019. This study also analyzes corporate strategies for overcoming public concerns about tax avoidance activities, namely, the trade-off legitimacy and risk reduction strategies, through two mechanisms: the mediation and moderation roles of environmental disclosure on the relationship between environmental costs and tax avoidance activities.

The data consists of 675 and 235 observations for Australia and Indonesia, respectively, which were analyzed quantitatively using panel regression.

The results showed that the trade-off legitimacy or risk reduction strategies are not found to be implemented by companies in Indonesia, while in Australia, corporations use the trade-off legitimacy strategy to reduce risk and overcome the negative impact of tax avoidance activities. The results also provide empirical evidence on the impact of environmental costs on environmental disclosure in both countries.

This study contributes to the literature by providing the latest evidence on the role of environmental costs on environmental disclosure, which has rarely been investigated in previous studies.

Under the carbon tax policy, the authors examine the operational decisions of the low-carbon supply chain with the triple bottom line.

This paper uses the Stackelberg game theory to obtain the optimal wholesale prices, retail prices, sales quantities and carbon emissions in different cases, and investigates the effect of the carbon tax policy.

This study’s main results are as follows: (1) the optimal retail price of the centralized supply chain is the lowest, while that of the decentralized supply chain where the manufacturer undertakes the carbon emission reduction (CER) responsibility and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the highest under certain conditions. (2) The sales quantity when the retailer undertakes the CER responsibility and the CSR is the largest. (3) The supply chain obtains the highest profits when the retailer undertakes the CER responsibility and the CSR. (4) The environmental performance impact decreases with the carbon tax.

The results of this study can provide decision-making suggestions for low-carbon supply chains. Besides, this paper provides implications for the government to promote the low-carbon market.

Most of the existing studies only consider economic responsibility and social responsibility or only consider economic responsibility and environmental responsibility. This paper is the first study that examines the operational decisions of low-carbon supply chains with the triple bottom line under the carbon tax policy.

Trade of environmentally sensitive goods (ESGs) is often exposed to countries with less stringent regulations suggesting that those countries have comparative advantage in the polluting sector. The Group of Twenty (G20) members are among the highest polluters, globally. Different stringency policies are enacted time to time in G20 to control environment pollution. However, the impact of policy stringency on export performance of ESGs is seldom examined. The paper aims to address some of the issues concerning this matter.

The present study aims to address the short run and long-run association between Revealed Comparative Advantage of ESGs and Environmental Policy Stringency Index for the period of 1990–2019 in G20. Periodic fluctuations and time adjustment mechanism are also studied. Second Generation Panel Cointegration, Vector Error Correction, Impulse Response Function and Variance Decomposition methods are employed to address the objectives.

Result is evident that more exposure to stringent environmental regulations reduces the comparative advantage of ESGs in the long run. But there is no evidence of the short-run relationship between the variables. The possible reason could be that new regulations enacted prove fruitful in the long run.

The novelty of the study is to focus on inter linkages between stringency and global export competitiveness in G20, almost nonexistent in the past studies. The study also provides a road map to policymakers to find out potential ways for sustainable development by balancing environmental stringency measures and international trade.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2022-0560