Tyler Cowen on Carbon Dividends : Pure Pedantry

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.

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Tyler Cowen on Carbon Dividends

Category: Economics
Posted on: April 19, 2008 3:33 PM, by NotoriousLTP

Tyler Cowen breaks down the thinking that a carbon cap with dividends is better than a carbon tax:

A broader question is whether the carbon dividends in fact make the citizenry better off. First there is the question of the incidence of the initial carbon tax, which of course falls on individuals one way or another. Second, does just sending people money, collectively, make the populace better off? Aggregate demand effects aside, will the fiscal stimulus make the citizenry as a whole better off? No. Will printing up more money and sending it to everyone, even if that is popular, make people better off? No.
...

I fear versions of this idea whose (possible) popularity rests on tricking voters. Being pro-science also means being pro-economic science. (Emphasis mine.)

Read the whole thing.

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