Public policies for environmental protection in latin america: experiences and perspectives for environmental taxation in Brazil

Abstract

The negative externalities caused by goods and services processes of production and consumption result in similar environmental damages all over Latin America countries. Thus, taxation, as a tool to operate incentive-based public policies, may work as stimulus for environmentally responsible behavior; this way, it can change consumer market behavior through the internalization of pollution costs. For this purpose, the present paper seeks to put in context the role of environmental tax law within the fiscal state, and also to appraise the ways in which taxation has been used worldwide to protect the environment, specially in Latin America.