Environmental accounting and taxation in Mexico: the case of the tourism sector

Abstract

In this paper we propose the need to reflect on the relevance of establishing an incentive structure, supported by environmental taxation and the management of adequate information that allows rewarding behaviors favorable to sustainability from the governmental authority itself. The problem is framed within the framework offered by neo-institutionalist thought in economics, i.e. as a basic problem of agency (relationship between the agent and the principal).

We emphasize that the central problem of taxation of tourist activity, such as the "ecotax" of the Balearic Islands in Spain, must be approached from three points of view: environmental accounting, environmental taxation and agency theory. We report on this in this essay and leave the space open for further reflections in this field.