Environmental taxation and the transition to clean fuels and technologies in Africa
Economic Change and Restructuring, cilt.59, sa.5, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 59 Sayı: 5
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1007/s10644-026-10058-w
- Dergi Adı: Economic Change and Restructuring
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, IBZ Online, ABI/INFORM, EconLit, Geobase, Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest), Business Source Ultimate (EBSCO), Health Research Premium Collection (ProQuest), Pharma Collection (ProQuest)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Africa, Clean cooking technologies, Clean fuel adoption, Environmental taxes, Sustainable energy
- İstanbul Ticaret Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Expanding the adoption of clean cooking fuels and technologies is central to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, yet progress towards this goal remains persistently slow. While environmental taxation is widely promoted as a market-based instrument to discourage polluting fuels and technologies, its effectiveness in low-income, biomass-dependent environments is theoretically ambiguous and empirically underexplored. This study examines how environmental taxes influence clean cooking adoption across 14 African nations over the period 2000–2021, using a suite of distribution-sensitive econometric techniques, including quantile correlation, method of moments quantile regression, and quantile-based causality analysis. These methods are further complemented by robustness checks based on Driscoll-Kraay fixed effects and fully modified ordinary least squares estimators. The findings reveal a striking and consistent pattern: environmental taxes do not promote transition to clean cooking, instead, they exert a significantly negative effect across the entire distribution of adoption levels. This adverse effect is strongest among countries with low adoption, where structural constraints such as limited access to modern fuels, weak infrastructure, and reliance on freely collected biomass undermine the price-based incentives embedded in taxation. Income emerges as a powerful and robust enabler of adoption, particularly in low-access settings, while a high rural population share constitutes a persistent structural barrier. In contrast, the influence of natural resource depletion is weak and non-systematic across estimation approaches. Overall, the results point to a fundamental limitation of environmental taxation as a standalone policy tool in low-income settings.