Climate Policy, Financial Frictions and Aggregate Productivity

Abstract

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of climate policies in the presence of financial frictions. Climate policies analyzed are the carbon tax and green financing, a policy that aims to reallocate capital toward environmentally friendly firms. When firms are financially constrained, the imposition of carbon tax helps reallocate capital from low-productive firms to high-productive firms by increasing the production cost. High-productive firms produce more but also engage in emissions abatement to reduce the carbon tax burden, incentivized by green financing. As a result, emissions decrease, but aggregate productivity and output increase, breaking the positive emissions-output relationship. However, the paper shows that the outlined positive effect of the carbon tax depends on the aggregate response of green financing to firm environmental performance.

Publication
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