Does Environmental Tax Affect Energy Efficiency? An Empirical Study of Energy Efficiency in OECD Countries Based on DEA and Logit Model

Pinglin He,Yulong Sun,Zhongfu Yu,Jianhui Jian,Huayu Shen

doi:10.3390/su11143792

Abstract

OECD countries are the largest energy consuming economies in the world, improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution emissions is one of the important goals of the environmental tax policies of OECD countries. Based on the total factor energy efficiency index, this paper establishes an epsilon based measure-data envelopment analysis (EBM-DEA) model to measure the energy efficiency levels of 32 OECD countries during 1995–2016 when undesired outputs are included and not included. The effect of environmental factors on energy efficiency evaluation is compared by efficiency analysis and projection value analysis. On this basis, a Panel Logit model was established to empirically examine the impact of energy taxes on energy efficiency in 32 OECD countries. This paper finds that undesired output has a large impact on the energy efficiency level of OECD countries. Measuring energy efficiency levels without considering undesired outputs tends to lead to overestimation of the energy efficiency level of environmentally friendly countries and underestimate the energy efficiency level of countries that value environmental protection. The collection of energy tax has an important impact on energy consumption efficiency. Without considering the unexpected output, the energy tax has a significant impact on improving the efficiency of coal energy consumption. When considering the unexpected output, the energy tax has a significant impact on improving the efficiency of oil energy consumption. Regardless of the expected output or not, the energy tax has a positive effect on improving the efficiency of natural gas energy consumption. The experimental results also show that the energy structure and energy price have a negative impact on energy efficiency, while the progress of environmental protection technology and industrial structure have a positive impact on energy efficiency. Energy taxes have a “double dividend”. This paper argues that when evaluating a country’s energy efficiency, it should consider the undesired output factors of environmental constraints; governments should pay attention to the role of energy taxes in improving energy efficiency, improve the energy tax system, optimize industrial structure upgrades, stabilize energy prices and support the development of environmental technologies and improve energy efficiency.

Highlights

Since the industrialization process has accelerated, the large-scale exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas has provided cheap power for economic development
To observe more closely the impact of undesired output factors on the energy efficiency levels of countries, Figure 3 shows the comparison of energy efficiency values without undesired outputs and including undesired outputs
It can be seen that when considering the undesired output factors, the energy efficiency levels of Australia, Austria, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, As mentioned earlier, when using data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to study energy efficiency in traditional literature, output variables are usually used such as expected output type of GDP, which may mislead people's assessment of real energy efficiency

Summary

Introduction

Since the industrialization process has accelerated, the large-scale exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas has provided cheap power for economic development. 11, 3792 x FOR PEER REVIEW industrialization and the increasing demand for energy, the contradiction between energy supply industrialization and the increasing demand for energy, the contradiction between energy supply and and demand in the world has become increasingly acute and the strategic demand for energy demand in the world has become increasingly acute and the strategic demand for energy innovation innovation and development has been increasing. Governments have raised their energy strategies and development has been increasing. The United States is vigorously developing shale gas and implementing the strategies

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Results

Conclusion