A classroom game on a negative externality correcting tax: Revenue return, regressivity, and the double dividend

ABSTRACT

The concept of negative externality is central to the teaching of environmental economics, but corrective taxes are almost always regressive. How exactly might governments return externality-correcting tax revenue to overcome regressivity and not alter marginal incentives? In addition, there is a desire to achieve a double dividend in the use of externality-correcting taxes, that is, to use the revenue to offset existing distortionary taxes, such as those on labor that produce a dead weight loss. In this article, the authors explain a classroom game that was developed for students to understand the theory of externalities, taxation dead weight loss, and regressivity. Then, the problem helps students explore the actual design of a policy that satisfies the double dividend hypothesis and corrects for regressivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental policy
• external cost
• gas tax
• problem-based learning

JEL CODES:

• H21
• H22
• H23
• Q48
• Q52
• Q58