I quit reading the Grist a long time ago because they don't heart ("hate" is a very strong word) economists. But, they might be falling in love with one of them:
N. Gregory Mankiw is, if not a household name, a dorm-room one. His Principles of Economics textbook is the standard for most college intro-to-econ courses, with more than a million copies sold. A professor at Harvard, Mankiw teaches the university’s most popular undergraduate course, Econ. 10.
He’s also well known in Republican circles. President George W. Bush named him chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in 2003, and in 2006, Mitt Romney brought on Mankiw as an economic adviser, a role the economist played throughout Romney’s 2012 presidential bid.
But though he calls himself a conservative — “I want limited government,” he explains — Mankiw advocates a carbon tax, a position notably at odds with all of the current GOP presidential candidates. He articulated his reasons in a recent New York Times op-ed, “The Key Role of Conservatives in Taxing Carbon.”
We called him up to get his perspective on the rift over climate change among Republicans, and his advice on how to sell a carbon tax to conservatives. ...
Q. Why a carbon tax and not a cap-and-trade system?
A. A carbon tax is much simpler. In cap-and-trade, one of the issues becomes: how do you allocate those permits for carbon emissions? A fully auctioned cap-and-trade system is very, very close to a carbon tax. But in practice, people who write the bills often don’t auction [all the permits] off, and [politicians] start using these permits to start paying off particular constituencies politically. That means that you’re basically pricing carbon, but you don’t have the revenue that you can use to reduce people’s taxes.
...
Q. Elon Musk is an advocate of a carbon tax, with the idea that it could catalyze the cleantech industries, and possibly be a job-creation engine.
A. Again, I wouldn’t push a carbon tax as a huge job creator. Some jobs will be created, some jobs will be destroyed. Some industries will grow, some industries will shrink. I don’t think the overall economy’s going to boom.
via grist.org
There are a number of questions with a lot of great answers (e.g., regarding climate science: "I can read the consensus of scientists, so I take that as a given and go on with economics.") I've excerpted only two, on familiar themes. One answer I agree with and one I don't.
I don't agree on the preference for a carbon tax over cap-and-trade with the reason being that politicians will enjoy passing out free permits. This is comparing an ideal carbon tax, with no tax breaks, with a politicized cap-and-trade. I see nothing about politics to suggest that a carbon tax will be immune to enjoyment of politicians passing out tax breaks.
And I most definitely agree that a carbon tax will not create jobs.
