A Methodological Approach for Assessing Policies: The Case of the Environmental Tax Reform at European Level

Abstract

The paper aims at illustrating a methodological approach for evaluating the consequences of adopting an Environmental Tax Reform (ETR) in European countries. The evaluation will be structured in three integrated steps: i) Pre-post comparison and with-without comparison; ii) Hierarchical Cluster Analysis; iii) Quantitative SWOT analysis. Results will show differences among countries before and after the introduction of the reform on three macro areas, environment, employment and innovation, as well as between adopting and no-adopting countries; will highlight heterogeneous paths and common challenges and will suggest future policies within the framework of the environmental tax system. The paper aims at contributing to the debate on the ex post evaluation of the ETR as well as illustrating the use of the multivariate analysis for providing insights to the SWOT analysis.