City Silhouette, World Climate

Dascher, Kristof (2013): City Silhouette, World Climate.

Abstract

Global emissions of carbon dioxide need to fall lest climate change will accelerate. Any effective climate policy must raise the price of carbon consumption. From an urban perspective, one desirable effect of a carbon tax would be to induce households to move closer to where they work. This paper shows that: If the initial distribution of commuting distances (the city silhouette) is skewed towards the periphery then a carbon tax will leave resident landlords better off - even if these landlords need to shoulder those extra commuting costs themselves, too. If resident landlords are decisive then this insight provides an urban silhouette based explanation of why some governments appear so much more willing to confront their citizens with the true cost of emitting carbon dioxide than others. More briefly, the paper suggests a connection between urban form and climate politics.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Urban Silhouette, Climate Policy, Political Economy, Carbon Tax
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q54 - Climate ; Natural Disasters and Their Management ; Global Warming; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

References

Arnott, R. and J. Stiglitz (1982) Aggregate Land Rent and Aggregate Transport Costs, Economic Journal 91: 331-347.

Borck, R. and M. Wrede (2005) Political Economy of Commuting Subsidies, Journal of Urban Economics 57: 478-499.

Borck, R. and M. Wrede (2007) Commuting Subsidies with Two Transport Nodes, Journal of Urban Economics 63: 841-848.

Brueckner, J. (1987) The Structure of Urban Equilibrium, in: E. Mills (ed.) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics Vol. 2, North-Holland:

Desmet, K. and E. Rossi-Hansberg (2012) On the Spatial Impact of Global Warming.

Fujita, M. (1989) Urban Economic Theory: Land Use and City Size, Cambridge University Press.

Gaigné, C., St. Riou, and J.F. Thisse (2012) Are Compact Cities Environmentally Friendly?, Journal of Urban Economics 72.2: 123-136.

Glaeser, E. (2011) Triumph of the City, Macmillan.

Glaeser, E. and M. Kahn (2010) The Greenness of Cities. Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development, Journal of Urban Economics 67.3. 404-418.

Kahn, M. (2006) Green Cites. Urban Growth and the Environment, Washington: Brookings.

Larson, W., L. Feng and L. Yezer (2012) Energy Footprint of the City: Effects of Urban Land use and Transportation Policies, Journal of Urban Economics 72.2: 147-159.

Millard-Ball, A. (2012) Do City Climate Plans Reduce Emissions?, Journal of Urban Economics 71.3: 289-311.

Mohring, H. (1961) Land Values and the Measurement of Highway Benefits, Journal of Political Economy 69.3: 236-249.

Schelling, Th. (1992) Some Economics of Global Warming, American Economic Review 82.1: 1-14.

Stern, N. (2006) Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

Tol, R. (2009) The Economic Effects of Climate Change, Journal of Economic Perspectives 23.2: 29-51.

Wheaton, W. (1974) A Comparative Static Analysis of Urban Spatial Structure, Journal of Economic Theory 9: 223-237.

Wildasin, (1984) Urban Public Finance, Chur.