Everybody brace yourself, I'm about to post on equity--and imply that it needs to be considered when analysing policy. Don't get me wrong, efficiency matters. My, not so humble, opinion is that designing efficient policy is far more important than designing equitable policy. I would much rather have a relatively small piece of a large pie than a piece of an evenly divided tiny pie--and I think most others would as well, if they didn't know what size piece of the pie they would get before the rules were set. But that's not to say equity doesn't matter. While this isn't directly related to the environment, any policy--including efficient environmental policy--raises the important distributional question: Who pays and who benefits? That's why I find studies like this interesting:
While many studies answer the question of who pays taxes in America, the question of who gets the most government spending is often overlooked. Just as some Americans bear a larger portion of the nation's tax burden than others, some Americans also receive a larger share of the nation's government spending.
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