The Distributional Effects of U.S. Clean Energy Tax Credits / Severin Borenstein, Lucas W. Davis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Borenstein, Severin.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Davis, Lucas W.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w21437.

NBER working paper series no. w21437

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

Since 2006, U.S. households have received more than $18 billion in federal income tax credits for weatherizing their homes, installing solar panels, buying hybrid and electric vehicles, and other "clean energy" investments. We use tax return data to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of program recipients. We find that these tax expenditures have gone predominantly to higher-income Americans. The bottom three income quintiles have received about 10% of all credits, while the top quintile has received about 60%. The most extreme is the program aimed at electric vehicles, where we find that the top income quintile has received about 90% of all credits. By comparing to previous work on the distributional consequences of pricing greenhouse gas emissions, we conclude that tax credits are likely to be much less attractive on distributional grounds than market mechanisms to reduce GHGs.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2015.