The European Union faces several interlinked challenges: how to protect
the environment and foster sustainability; how to reduce unemployment
and enhance competitiveness in a context of growing globalisation; how
to reduce regional disparities among and within member countries. The
policy debate has revealed that such objectives are not a trade off,
provided they are tackled in concert. In particular, win-win policy
options are available to the EU, given an appropriate integration of
regulation, macro-, social-, fiscal- and environmental policy. The
evidence shows that an optimisation of each single policy will not meet
the needs of the EU. But an integrated approach would allow the
implementation of a genuine sustainable development policy. This book
discusses the most recent results available on the green tax reform and
the double dividend hypothesis. The first part is devoted to theoretical
analysis and the second provides empirical results.  

Contributors: T. Barker, A. L. Bovenberg, G. Brunello,
P. Capros, C. Carraro, K. Conrad, R. A. De Mooij, B. Gardiner, P.
Georgakopoulos, J. E. Lighthart, E. Michiels, S. Proost, R. Repetto, T.
Schmidt, Y. Smeers, A. Soubeyran, J. Strand, F. van der Ploeg, D. van
Regemorter, S. Zografakis

The European Union faces several interlinked challenges: how to protect the environment and foster sustainability; how to reduce unemployment and enhance competitiveness in a context of growing globalisation; how to reduce regional disparities among and within member countries. The policy debate has revealed that such objectives are not a trade off, provided they are tackled in concert. In particular, win-win policy options are available to the EU, given an appropriate integration of regulation, macro-, social-, fiscal- and environmental policy. The evidence shows that an optimisation of each single policy will not meet the needs of the EU. But an integrated approach would allow the implementation of a genuine sustainable development policy. This book discusses the most recent results available on the green tax reform and the double dividend hypothesis. The first part is devoted to theoretical analysis and the second provides empirical results.  

Contributors: T. Barker, A. L. Bovenberg, G. Brunello, P. Capros, C. Carraro, K. Conrad, R. A. De Mooij, B. Gardiner, P. Georgakopoulos, J. E. Lighthart, E. Michiels, S. Proost, R. Repetto, T. Schmidt, Y. Smeers, A. Soubeyran, J. Strand, F. van der Ploeg, D. van Regemorter, S. Zografakis