Pigouvian tax

the origin of ecological taxation and the counterpoint of the Coase Theorem

Abstract

It is undeniable that, over the last decades, there has been a real revolution in the modes of production and consumption, stimulated by factors such as economic development, unbridled population growth, urbanization in large centers and the technological revolution. One of the main challenges of the modern world is to develop effective strategies to cool the growing degradation of ecosystems. In this context, the State has the important duty, constitutionally conferred, to develop efficient public policies in the defense and preservation of the environment. Among the most celebrated instruments currently, aimed at this purpose, stands out and the exploitation of the extrafiscality of taxes to induce adequate socio-environmental behaviors. Because of this, the importance of understanding the characteristics and origin of this public policy, which goes back to the theory of the English economist Arthur Cecil Pigou, of the first half of the twentieth century, is overtaken. The pigouvian tribute, with its characteristic of burdening production processes so that the degrader internalizes marginal social costs, found a counterpoint in the studies of the economist Ronald Coase (1960), with his Coase theorem. For this economist, the solution to the externalities generated involves property rights and should be the subject of negotiation between the affected parties, without state intervention. Thus, the present study, through the adoption of the deductive approach method, a qualitative, theoretical and descriptive research, investigated the foundations of the pigouvian tribute and the criticisms of this systematics formulated by Ronald Coase.