4 ms·
Redistribution is just a technique to avoid a conflict of interest. They may end up redistributing between more- and less- wealthy people, but that's just a si
by brandmeyer 6y ago
Redistribution is just a technique to avoid a conflict of interest. They may end up redistributing between more- and less- wealthy people, but that's just a side-effect. Considering that low-carbon technologies are more capital-intensive than high-carbon tech, the redistribution may actually be from less-wealthy to more-wealthy actors.
We want the tax rate to be high enough to disincentivize carbon-emitting actions relative to carbon-neutral (or carbon-capturing) actions. But if government's ability to finance public operations is also affected, then we have a problem. The revenue-maximum tax rate is based on a completely different optimization problem than the carbon-minimum tax rate.
Making carbon taxes revenue-neutral decouples the two policy objectives.