Formulation of variables of environmental taxation: a bibliometric analysis of Scopus database (2001-2022)

Environmental taxation has captured significant attention to tackle climate change, and a plethora of studies have been done within the vicennial on this new tax regime. The present study analyses the scientific studies through bibliometric analysis to find out the research gap and research variables for modelling of environmental tax. The 590 literature is retrieved from the Scopus database (2001-2022 March) with the keywords Environmental* Tax* OR Carbon Tax*, after limiting the subject area to economics, business, finance, and social science. The analysis is confined to the most impactful journals, organisations, countries, keywords, international collaboration, and the direction of recent research areas. It is found that the "Journal of cleaner production" has the highest growth rate due to the most productive (43 publications) and highly cited (1115 total citations) journal. The 'North China Power University' has published the highest 26 documents, and China is the most productive (148 publications) and highly cited (2598 total citation) country. The USA has the highest international collaboration in 118 documents with 17 countries. The study found that over half of the top 30 keywords are about policymaking, reform, regulation, and environmental tax impact. Analysis of keywords and network analysis directs that the Impact of environmental and carbon tax, Double dividend, Effect on macroeconomic variables, Emission trading system and Public acceptability are the research hotspots in the published literature. It is suggested from the analytical results that research collaboration among social science and environmental science subjects and developed and developing nations will bridge the knowledge gap and bring new insights to the environmental tax area.