Colombia introduces carbon tax

by Manuela Fonseca-Gómez

Colombia’s carbon tax, which was passed into law in 2017, is likely to be the most effective policy measure to help the South American country steer its economy towards a lower-carbon development path. This will offset the two other key factors that might otherwise cause the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to rise: the falling cost of mining coal, and the fact that the country will eventually reach the limits of its hydroelectric power potential.

The EfD Colombia Report 2017 gives you an excellent overview of the centres´ achievements during 2017 ranging from interesting policy stories on how economic research is put to use around the world to collaborative research programs, a wide range of publications, and our academic capacity efforts. 

During recent decades, water demand estimation has gained considerable attention from scholars.  From an econometric perspective, the most used functional forms include log-log and linear specifications.  Despite the advances in this field and the relevance for policymaking, little attention has been paid to the functional forms used in these estimations, and most authors have not provided justifications for their selection of functional forms.  A discrete continuous choice model of the residential water demand is estimated using six functional forms (log-log, full-log, log q