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a pigouvian tax attempts to attain an economic optimum, while a sin tax disregards it, and in fact, blows right past and into economic inefficiency. by your own
by clairity 5y ago
a pigouvian tax attempts to attain an economic optimum, while a sin tax disregards it, and in fact, blows right past and into economic inefficiency. by your own admission, you're making an non-economic argument (for sin taxes), and that was the point.
- tomrod 5y agoI highly recommend revisiting the definitions for normative versus positive economic statements. A sin-tax is a subset of pigovian taxes where the social norm for optimal consumption is zero. This is squarely in the realm of economics, your protests aside. As I stated in the prior comment that I believe you perhaps only skimmed, how the society came to that conclusion that the optimal consumption is zero is beyond economics. If you would like to discuss belief formation and other psychology/sociology discussions, I'm happy to engage but I'm sorry to say it's only an area of interest.