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Paul Zrimsek
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3 months ago
in Why Climate Alarmism Alarms Me on Will Wilkinson
I don't think anyone here is unaware of the growth elasticity of poverty. What Will and I doubt-- as you should know without having to be told-- is that you can boost it without hurting the growth rate that makes it work in the first place.
1 reply
DMonteith
Who cares? If you're alleviating poverty more effectively at a lower growth rate than you were at a higher one what difference does it make? There are obviously optimization issues here, but "oh noes! you've maybe hurt growth!" seems to be missing the point.
3 months ago
in Why Climate Alarmism Alarms Me on Will Wilkinson
It's from Freddie. It means "You're a big lying poopyhead", and not much else.
1 reply
Dan
Close, Paul. What it really means is, "I studied lots of philosphy, but now the only real-life applicability I can find for Aristotelian ideas is in blog comments, and hey, I gotta use my education somehow, right?"
3 months ago
in Why Climate Alarmism Alarms Me on Will Wilkinson
The key to this frightfully baffling paradox lies in that phrase "given rate of growth". Is there one, really?
1 reply
DMonteith
Read this about growth elasticity of poverty. It's pretty straightforward stuff.
4 months ago
in John Galt and the Billion Tweaks on Will Wilkinson
Under a tax, we guess at a price that we think will achieve x+y emissions.
Better google "Pigovian tax" before getting into a debate like this again. It's hard to talk sense about something when you misunderstand it this completely.
Better google "Pigovian tax" before getting into a debate like this again. It's hard to talk sense about something when you misunderstand it this completely.
2 replies
DMonteith
Let's review, shall we? "Arbitrary caps" has been shown to be a bogus objection, and we now both agree that c&t addresses a major shortcoming (or "difficulty" if you prefer) of Pigouvian taxes.
"QED and out".
"QED and out".
DMonteith
From Wikipedia:
One difficulty with Pigovian tax is calculating what level of tax will counterbalance the negative externality. Political factors such as lobbying of government by polluters may also tend to reduce the level of the tax levied, which will tend to reduce the mitigating effect of the tax.
How can your suggestion that we review remedial economics not be considered an "own goal" on your part given the above quote?
Dazzle me.
One difficulty with Pigovian tax is calculating what level of tax will counterbalance the negative externality. Political factors such as lobbying of government by polluters may also tend to reduce the level of the tax levied, which will tend to reduce the mitigating effect of the tax.
How can your suggestion that we review remedial economics not be considered an "own goal" on your part given the above quote?
Dazzle me.
4 months ago
in John Galt and the Billion Tweaks on Will Wilkinson
Why are emissions something we need to be certain about? The whole point of the carbon tax is that so long as the environmental damage is priced into fossil fuel, the market will find the correct emission level on its own.
1 reply
DMonteith
The whole point of the carbon tax is that so long as the environmental damage is priced into fossil fuel, the market will find the correct emission level on its own.
What price accurately reflects the environmental damage? By limiting emissions to a known number, the market can figure that out. This is just the other side of the same coin, but from the point of view of prioritizing emissions reductions, a tax involves three moving parts--tax rates, what emission levels that result from them, and what effect on climate those levels have, whereas c&t involves just the levels and the atmospheric results without dealing with question of price. From a scientific perspective, fewer variables is better.
This also intersects with the political dynamics. A tax is easier to demagogue (by people from Cato, perhaps?) than is a permit, unless there's a high profile "permit revolt" movement that I'm unaware of.
In case you're wondering, I'm not currently planning to man the barricades if a carbon tax is passed rather than cap and trade. Either one is a step in the right direction.
What price accurately reflects the environmental damage? By limiting emissions to a known number, the market can figure that out. This is just the other side of the same coin, but from the point of view of prioritizing emissions reductions, a tax involves three moving parts--tax rates, what emission levels that result from them, and what effect on climate those levels have, whereas c&t involves just the levels and the atmospheric results without dealing with question of price. From a scientific perspective, fewer variables is better.
This also intersects with the political dynamics. A tax is easier to demagogue (by people from Cato, perhaps?) than is a permit, unless there's a high profile "permit revolt" movement that I'm unaware of.
In case you're wondering, I'm not currently planning to man the barricades if a carbon tax is passed rather than cap and trade. Either one is a step in the right direction.
4 months ago
in John Galt and the Billion Tweaks on Will Wilkinson
Bizarre, how? There are two decisions to be made about carbon: how much to emit in total, and who should produce what fraction of that total? A carbon tax leaves the market to answer both questions; cap-and-trade lets it answer only the second, replacing its verdict on the first with a bureaucratic diktat. So people who understand that markets are the way to go (assuming they agree that carbon emissions represent significant negative externalities) prefer a carbon tax. No puzzle at all.
1 reply
Will Wilkinson
I agree with Paul. Webgrrl, you make it sound like Sachs' auction schemes for privatization in Russia, since it used "a market" was somehow the ideal solution from the perspective a market lover.
Anyway, creating markets out of thin air by inventing a scarce good, declaring a monopoly over it, and then setting up a market for trade in it, isn't my idea of capitalism. Though it does sounds a good bit like what the Fed does.
Anyway, creating markets out of thin air by inventing a scarce good, declaring a monopoly over it, and then setting up a market for trade in it, isn't my idea of capitalism. Though it does sounds a good bit like what the Fed does.
4 months ago
in Sachs on the Self-Defeating Stimulus on Will Wilkinson
Prescott told me that he considers economic theory that treats the economy like a machine attached to policy levers that can be pulled to achieve the intended outcomes to be pseudoscience.
When I asked what he would have advised, Prescott said he wished Obama had used his considerable political capital to form some kind of task force to very deliberatively restructure the tax system, the entitlement system, the financial system, etc., instead of pushing for a stimulus.
Do these two Prescotts know about each other?
When I asked what he would have advised, Prescott said he wished Obama had used his considerable political capital to form some kind of task force to very deliberatively restructure the tax system, the entitlement system, the financial system, etc., instead of pushing for a stimulus.
Do these two Prescotts know about each other?
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chrismealy
Indeed.
5 months ago
in The Incoherence of Neo-Keynesian Doomsaying on Will Wilkinson
"Last but perhaps not least among causes of the consumer funk is the administration's own determined pessimism. Mr. Bush has a bully pulpit, and he is using it to preach economic alarm. This adds powerfully to the chorus of doomsaying. And when it comes to short-term economics, believing can sometimes make it so."
--Paul Krugman, 2/21/01
--Paul Krugman, 2/21/01
1 reply
Will Wilkinson
Ooh. Thanks, Paul. This one's getting it's own post.
7 months ago
in Nothing to Do With Quarterbacks on Will Wilkinson
My comment was meant to push back against a strain of thought that I find frustrating: that when government does something badly, that implies that it shouldn't do it at all.
Well, uhh...yeah. This, in its general form, is what just about everyone believes. Your own interest in teacher selection suggests that you're not quite as frustrated by it as you let on-- when dropouts teach badly, you draw the conclusion that dropouts shouldn't teach at all, not that we should think of a better way for dropouts to teach. (The wishfulness of that prescription becomes a lot more obvious when it's applied to something other than the government, doesn't it? People have been trying to think of better ways for the government to do things for a long time now. If none such have made it into practice, it strongly implies that either the better ways aren't there to be found, or that something about the political process keeps them from being implemented. Neither state of affairs is likely to change very soon.)
Well, uhh...yeah. This, in its general form, is what just about everyone believes. Your own interest in teacher selection suggests that you're not quite as frustrated by it as you let on-- when dropouts teach badly, you draw the conclusion that dropouts shouldn't teach at all, not that we should think of a better way for dropouts to teach. (The wishfulness of that prescription becomes a lot more obvious when it's applied to something other than the government, doesn't it? People have been trying to think of better ways for the government to do things for a long time now. If none such have made it into practice, it strongly implies that either the better ways aren't there to be found, or that something about the political process keeps them from being implemented. Neither state of affairs is likely to change very soon.)
1 reply
jme
I never meant to imply that it wasn't possible to argue (as you begin to, persuasively) that if government has done a poor job of something routinely and repeatedly in the past, then we should consider some other type of solution.
The issue here (I think) is not whether a particular government solution to a problem is successful, but the number of instances that we are trying to generalize from. Let's take your example of the high school drop out. If you showed me a _single_ high school drop out who didn't teach well, I would, in fact, be reluctant to draw many conclusions from that. There might be many other drop outs who teach very well!
My point with government run education systems is analogous: our _particular_ public education system has (numerous) flaws, but it is just _one_ way of designing a public education system. So I'm reluctant to generalize to the claim _all_ public education systems are deeply flawed simply because our _particular_ one is.
One could conceivably argue that there are many other countries with stellar public education systems, and that hence the problem isn't "government", but the particulars of how the government designs the public education system.
I will, however, happily confess that I don't know much about education systems in other countries, and would not be in much of a position to actually make such arguments. I was simply trying to argue that the position that government run public education systems are _inherently_ bad requires more evidence than a single example (i.e. the US system) of a public education system the works poorly. That's all.
The issue here (I think) is not whether a particular government solution to a problem is successful, but the number of instances that we are trying to generalize from. Let's take your example of the high school drop out. If you showed me a _single_ high school drop out who didn't teach well, I would, in fact, be reluctant to draw many conclusions from that. There might be many other drop outs who teach very well!
My point with government run education systems is analogous: our _particular_ public education system has (numerous) flaws, but it is just _one_ way of designing a public education system. So I'm reluctant to generalize to the claim _all_ public education systems are deeply flawed simply because our _particular_ one is.
One could conceivably argue that there are many other countries with stellar public education systems, and that hence the problem isn't "government", but the particulars of how the government designs the public education system.
I will, however, happily confess that I don't know much about education systems in other countries, and would not be in much of a position to actually make such arguments. I was simply trying to argue that the position that government run public education systems are _inherently_ bad requires more evidence than a single example (i.e. the US system) of a public education system the works poorly. That's all.
7 months ago
in Yglesias On Detroit on Will Wilkinson
So when the national carbon market is set up, we can rest assured that the price for permission to emit a ton of carbon will equal the marginal cost of producing the permission to emit a ton of carbon? This warms the cockles of my libertarian heart.
1 reply
webgrrl
Paul, emissions markets have been proven to work; NOX and SOX are great. Acid rain really is no longer a problem because of emissions trading. Why would carbon be any different than NOX and SOX?
As you may know, the carbon market in the Northeast US has already begun and the Western Climate Initiative, which includes many Western States, most of Canada, and with Florida and maybe some of Mexico joining. But regionalty won't work, since the carbon permits aren't currently fungible between them at this stage. The only way to sanity is 1 national market.
But I'll go even farther - we also need a water market, and probably a fisheries market too.
As you may know, the carbon market in the Northeast US has already begun and the Western Climate Initiative, which includes many Western States, most of Canada, and with Florida and maybe some of Mexico joining. But regionalty won't work, since the carbon permits aren't currently fungible between them at this stage. The only way to sanity is 1 national market.
But I'll go even farther - we also need a water market, and probably a fisheries market too.
