Seminar by Don Fullerton: "Distributional Effects of Environmental and Energy Policy"

Prof. Don Fullerton will give a seminar entitled “Distributional Effects of Environmental and Energy Policy” on March 01, Monday at Özyeğin University.

Many effects of environmental policy are likely to be regressive.  First, many of these policies raise the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products, expenditures on which are a high fraction of low-income budgets.  Second, if abatement technologies are capital-intensive, then any mandate to abate pollution may induce firms to use more capital.  If demand for capital is raised relative to labor, then a lower relative wage may also hurt low-income households.  Third, pollution permits handed out to firms bestow scarcity rents on well-off individuals who own those firms.  Fourth, low-income individuals may place more value on food and shelter than on incremental improvements in environmental quality.  If high-income individuals get the most benefit of pollution abatement, then this effect is regressive as well.  Fifth, low-income renters miss out on house price capitalization of air quality benefits.  Well-off landlords may reap those gains. Sixth, transition effects could well hurt the unemployed who are already at some disadvantage.  These six effects might all hurt the poor more than the rich. 

Prof. Don Fullerton will discuss whether these fears are valid, and whether anything can be done about them.  In doing so, he will touch on results from several different research papers.


Date: 01 March 2010, Monday
Time: 16:30 – 17:30
Venue: Auditorium 1

Program
16:00 – 16:30 Coffee/Tea
16:30 – 17:30 Presentation


Seminar will be in English.

Who is Don Fullerton?

Prof. Don Fullerton received a BA from Cornell in 1974 and a PhD in Economics from U.C. Berkeley in 1978. He taught at Princeton University (1978-84), the University of Virginia (1984-91), Carnegie Mellon University (1991-94) and the University of Texas (1994-2008), before joining the University of Illinois in 2008. From 1985 to 1987, he served in the U.S. Treasury Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis.

At Illinois, he is Gutgsell Professor in the Finance Department, Center for Business and Public Policy, and Institute of Government and Public Affairs. He is Managing Editor for the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, and Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research program on Environmental and Energy Economics.