Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2023.2271968
Can environmental taxes decrease final energy consumption in the old and new EU countries?
Tanja Fatur Šikić
Sabina Hodžić
Abstract
Despite the harmonisation process within the EU area, there are
many economic and political differences among European countries
in promoting energy policies. Moreover, the status of implementation
of environmental tax reforms in the new EU countries
is very different from that in the old EU countries, and the economic
and environmental impacts of such taxation are diverse.
The objective of this paper was therefore to investigate whether
the role of environmental taxes in reducing final energy consumption
is the same in old and new EU countries. The analysis
was conducted for 16 old and 11 new EU member states over
the period 1995–2020 using Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Mean
Group (MG) estimators. The results indicate that environmental
taxes have a negative long-term impact on final energy consumption
in both groups of countries. However, this impact is much
smaller in the new EU countries. Moreover, economic growth and
greenhouse gas emissions increase final energy consumption.
These results also suggest that in order to achieve climate neutrality
by 2050, the new EU countries need to apply some stringent
regulations and introduce further institutional and
environmental reforms that support increasing the share of clean
energy sources in the energy mix.
Keywords
Environmental taxes; final energy consumption; old and new EU countries; dynamic panel regression models; fiscal policy
Hrčak ID:
315162
URI
Publication date:
23.10.2023.
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