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The present economy is not sustainable with regard to its per capita material consumption. A dematerialization of the economy of industrialized countries can be achieved by a change in course, from an industrial economy built on throughput to a circular economy built on stock optimization, decoupling wealth and welfare from resource consumption while creating more work. The business models of a circular economy have been known since the mid-1970s and are now applied in a number of industrial sectors. This paper argues that a simple and convincing lever could accelerate the shift to a circular economy, and that this lever is the shift to a tax system based on the principles of sustainability: not taxing renewable resources including human labour-work-but taxing non-renewable resources instead is a powerful lever. Taxing materials and energies will promote low-carbon and low-resource solutions and a move towards a 'circular' regional economy as opposed to the 'linear' global economy requiring fuel-based transport for goods throughput. In addition to substantial improvements in material and energy efficiency, regional job creation and national greenhouse gas emission reductions, such a change will foster all activities based on 'caring', such as maintaining cultural heritage and natural wealth, health services, knowledge and know-how.

The world faces urgent sustainability challenges and international agreements call for policy change. CO2 pricing is an effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and allows us to find innovative ways to cover these emission sources, addressing environmental, economic, and social sustainability through the targeted use of revenues. In order to design a publicly acceptable pricing concept, this study empirically examines the public perceptions of CO2 pricing in Germany, preferred revenue recycling schemes, and socio-psychological differences following its national implementation. In a choice-based conjoint measurement, we simulated the interplay of influencing factors (revenue reinvestment, climate effects, and scale of action) in a comprehensible choice task (n = 1209). The results show that revenue reinvestment has the highest importance for the acceptance of CO2 pricing, followed by the climate effect, and confirm that the individual financial burden is a significant obstacle to achieving government climate goals. The findings help policymakers to understand the public’s motives and demands for accepted carbon pricing options, and support management recommendations for policy and governance to work towards a sustainable transformation. However, to achieve global sustainability outcomes, it is imperative that such studies are conducted worldwide, as comparisons with previous studies reveal local differences in needs and preferences.

As part of green economics, taxes are imposed on emissions of pollutants that adversely impact the environment and public health to reward more innovative, environmentally sustainable, and low-carbon resource use. There are still many nation-states testing the concept of green taxation. Many environmental performance indicators place India low on the list of countries with the worst pollution. One of the main sources of pollution is vehicle exhaust. Green taxes will be imposed on older motor vehicles under guidelines released by the Indian government in 2021. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change received the Indian Nationally Determined Contribution Report in 2022. Taxonomies and low-carbon transport systems were prioritized in India, and incentives and tax breaks were offered to encourage the manufacture and use of vehicles that consume more ethanol. Academic discussions and literature on the subject are still lacking among the masses. Researchers intend to analyze the legal and economic measures taken by the Indian Government to curb vehicular pollution against this background. Due to its significant contribution to air and water pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, the automobile industry has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. India and China, for instance, have implemented green tax policies to reduce the automotive sector’s environmental footprint and promote environmental sustainability. These policies are effective, but not all of them address the disproportionate impact of environmental injustice on vulnerable populations. Specifically, this study examines the impact of Indian green tax policies on environmental justice in the automobile industry as compared to those in China. A key aim of this study is to provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the green taxation policies adopted by each country in the automotive sector, as well as their implications for achieving environmental justice, by analyzing the scope, enforcement, impact on vulnerable communities, industry implications, and alignment with international commitments.

In this paper, we assess the effects of fiscal policy on load capacity factor using data spanning from 1990 to 2018 in BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa). Unlike both CO 2 emissions and ecological footprint, the load capacity factor captures both the demand and supply sides of the environment. This research leverages on co-integration test, second-generation unit root tests, and the novel panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (PNARDL). The results revealed that the major contributors to environmental deterioration are economic expansion and nonrenewable energy, while environmental sustainability is attributed to increased renewable energy. Furthermore, a positive shock in taxation revenue increases the quality of the environment while positive (negative) shocks in government expenditure decrease environmental quality. In affirming the PNARDL testing approach findings, the current study employed the pool mean group (PMG) and mean group (MG) estimators to assess the linkage between the independent and dependent variables. The results of the MG and PMG estimators align with the panel nonlinear ARDL results. Besides, the panel causality test also revealed unidirectional causality from renewable energy, nonrenewable energy, economic growth, government expenditure, and taxation revenues to load capacity factor. These findings affirm the findings of the PNARDL testing approach. The study suggests that the BRICS nations’ governments should use the fiscal policy to enhance ecological sustainability by promoting investment and projects in renewable sources.

Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals articulated by the United Nations, number one is the elimination of extreme poverty by 2030. While future economic growth should continue to reduce poverty, it will not solve the problem by itself; thus, there is a potentially important role for national-level transfer programs that assist poor families in developing countries. Such programs are often run by developing country governments. Many countries have implemented transfer programs that seek to target beneficiaries: that is, to identify who is poor and then to restrict transfers to those individuals. Some people have begun to advocate for “universal basic income” programs, which dispense with trying to identify the poor and instead provide transfers to everyone. We begin by considering the universal basic income as part of the solution to an optimal income-taxation problem, focusing on the case of developing countries, where there is limited income data and inclusion in the formal tax system is low. We examine how the targeting of transfer programs is conducted in these settings, and provide empirical evidence on the tradeoffs involved between universal basic income and targeted transfer schemes using data from Indonesia and Peru—two countries that run nationwide transfer programs that are targeted to the poor. We conclude by linking our findings back to the broader policy debate on what tools should be preferred for redistribution, as well as the practical challenges of administering them in developing countries.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world, accounting for more than 30% of global GDP and 60% of world population. The economic growth of BRI member countries can be improved significantly, attributable to the successfulness of the infrastructure projects. The increased economic growth indirectly leads to higher energy consumption and environmental damage. In response to this, the BRI established a new concept and version of the project, namely green BRI. Thus, this study aims to examine if green finance plays a significant role in mitigating environmental degradation in the BRI region. Utilising a Generalised Method of Moments approach, we find green finance is negatively and significantly correlated with environmental degradation, suggesting green finance play an essential role to reduce the deterioration of environmental quality, while enhancing economic growth at the same time. In conclusion, BRI member states should continue promoting green finance by implementing incentive schemes, such as subsidising interest rates for the green loan, reducing corporate tax and establishing green credit guarantee scheme. Besides, in order simultaneously enhance economic growth, promote sustainability and achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, both governments and private sector should work hand in hand to promote green transformation of BRI.

In this paper, we estimate short- and long-term tax buoyancy for 44 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries during 1980–2017 using time series and panel techniques. We find that the long-term tax buoyancy is either one or slightly above one for most SSA countries. Fragile states have a lower short-term tax buoyancy reflecting their institutional weaknesses. Short-term buoyancy of personal income tax is significantly less than one. Both short- and long-run tax responses are lower than those reported in previous cross-country studies, which can be interpreted as a reduced power of both automatic stabilization in the short run and fiscal sustainability in the long run. We find that central government debt and shadow economy exert a downward pressure on tax buoyancy. An important implication of these results is that the current tax systems in SSA would not be able to generate domestic revenues to the extent needed for financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The study examined the impact of Sustainable Tax Revenue and Expenditure on the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in African countries using secondary data. The dataset was extracted from the World Development Indicators database. The large gap between developed and developing countries when comparing the probability of them achieving the SDGs was the main motivation behind this study. Data retrieved from 45 countries comprised of both African and developed countries for the period 2010–2020 was analyzed using the Generalized Method of Moments technique. The results revealed that the coefficients of grants received, various forms of taxes, and other revenue have a positive effect on economic growth but a negative effect on poverty and unemployment for African and developed countries. This finding suggests that improvements in tax revenue generation, grants and other revenue accumulation across different sources boost economic performance and the welfare of individuals in the analyzed countries. The outcome is an indication that accumulating more grants from different sources will help to achieve sustainable development, improve financial stability, contributes to the economic growth and development in these countries. This study can guide policymakers, governments, international institutions, revenue bodies such as SARS and other stakeholders in their various planning and other decision-making endeavors. Governments and other policymakers must ensure the efficient generation and sustainable utilization of revenue generated from taxes and other revenues to spur the growth and development of their countries. They should have Growth-Sustainability-Oriented Fiscal Adjustment Programs and Sustainable Government Expenditure that can help push and redirect governments to achieve the SDGs in Africa.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are enforced by a set of instruments, among which environmental regulations, green innovation, and carbon taxes play a central part. This article aims to investigate the mitigation capacity of the above-mentioned elements using a sample of 15 European countries. This study takes CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) into account to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the findings. Augmented Dickey–Fuller and CIPS unit root tests, Pesaran CD, Bias-corrected scaled LM are employed to check the cross-sectional dependence. The panel effect is tested using error correction-based modeling along with dynamic approaches, while the Granger causality technique employs country-related outcomes. The results show that innovation and environmental policies help in reducing emissions both in the long and the short run. In addition to this, carbon pricing mitigates emissions in the regions although its effect is more country-specific. We find evidence of both unidirectional and bidirectional causality among the variables. However, in a few cases, they are too a country-specific artifact. As a general conclusion, carbon pricing is an efficient short-run tool to achieve SDGs. At the same time, long-run sustainability relies on green innovation and environmental policy stringency in the region.

Adoption of carbon regulation mechanisms facilitates an evolution toward green and sustainable supply chains followed by an increased complexity. Through the development and usage of a multi-choice goal programming model solved by an improved algorithm, this article investigates sustainability strategies for carbon regulations mechanisms. We first propose a sustainable logistics model that considers assorted vehicle types and gas emissions involved with product transportation. We then construct a bi-objective model that minimizes total cost as the first objective function and follows environmental considerations in the second one. With our novel robust-heuristic optimization approach, we seek to support the decision-makers in comparison and selection of carbon emission policies in supply chains in complex settings with assorted vehicle types, demand and economic uncertainty. We deploy our model in a case-study to evaluate and analyse two carbon reduction policies, i.e., carbon-tax and cap-and-trade policies. The results demonstrate that our robust-heuristic methodology can efficiently deal with demand and economic uncertainty, especially in large-scale problems. Our findings suggest that governmental incentives for a cap-and-trade policy would be more effective for supply chains in lowering pollution by investing in cleaner technologies and adopting greener practices.