The influence of environmental taxes on environmental protection : comparative assessment of Lithuania and European countries

Abstract

Importance of environmental taxes is defined as the capacity of environmental taxes to perform their functions and implement the respective goals, such as reduction of environmental pollution through increase of the environmental protection related tax rates. Research aim: to assess the effect of environmental taxes on the environmental protection and compare it to the selected European countries. The period of 15 years - 2000 to 2015 - and data from Eurostat database have been chosen for the correlation and regression analysis, as the generated results for Lithuania are compared to the European countries. Hence, applicability of the models for all the countries individually is verified by application of the model to each of the countries. The generated estimates of the coefficients and standardized beta coefficients allow drawing conclusions regarding applicability of the model for each country and interpreting the generated results. This, in turn, leads to identification of the factors that have effect on variation of the share of revenues from environmental taxes in GDP and, at the same time, the effect of change of GDP, i.e. economy growth, on the change of revenues from environmental taxes in Lithuania and other European countries, on the basis of the coefficients generated. The correlation analysis has suggested that GDP per capita, environmental protection expenditure, generation of renewable energy and SO2 emissions have the strongest and statistically significant relationship across the European countries, i.e. the share of revenues from environmental taxes in GDP tends to vary in case of variation of these factors. Meanwhile, energy saving, amount of waste and regulation quality have slightly weaker correlation relationship compared to other variables in the European countries