A quantified assessment of the French 'carbon tax'

The carbon tax has been introduced in France in 2014 as a 'climate energy contribution' to assign a price to CO₂ emission of energetic origin and not covered by the EU ETS. This study aims at assessing the actual effects of this tax. The author first recalls some context elements for a better understanding of the way carbon price signal reaches economic actors via energy prices. Then, the author reports the assessment of tax impacts by two methods: an ex-ante approach, and an ex-post approach. The first one is based on the calculation of elasticities to price and to tax. Through this approach, it seems that the carbon tax resulted in a reduction of emissions in the transport sector and in the domestic fuel sector. However, the interpretation of consumer reactions can be discussed and displays some uncertainty. The second one is based on the synthetic control method with a reconstitution of France's hypothetical emissions by using data from comparable countries which did not introduce this carbon tax. Its conclusions are not robust enough to show an impact of the carbon tax.