Akademik Məlumat İdarəetmə Sistemi
Environmental Sciences Europe, vol.38, no.1, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Environmental taxes have emerged as a key policy tool in the European Union's efforts to promote economic stability and environmental sustainability. In order to assess the viability of the double dividend hypothesis, this study looks at how environmental taxes affect economic growth, unemployment, and CO2 emissions in 25 EU member states between 2000 and 2022. Significant relationships between fiscal environmental measures and macroeconomic performance are revealed by the analysis, which makes use of strong panel econometric techniques such as DOLS, PMG, AMG, System GMM, and DCCE estimators. The findings show that while transportation taxes encourage favorable economic outcomes, energy and pollution taxes have a negative impact on GDP. While energy and transportation taxes tend to raise unemployment, higher GDP is linked to lower unemployment. Furthermore, while unemployment greatly reduces CO2 emissions, energy and pollution taxes, as well as GDP growth, all contribute to rising CO2 emissions. The double dividend hypothesis is supported by these findings, which imply that funds collected from energy and pollution taxes (the second dividend) can be efficiently used to fund renewable energy, green infrastructure, and environmentally friendly transportation in order to reduce emissions (the first dividend). Overall, the study emphasizes that in order to achieve both economic and environmental benefits within the EU framework, proper revenue recycling and focused policy design are crucial.