150 likes | 312 Views
Results. Preference Parameter Estimates. Comparison to Pew Estimate. Implications for Emissions. Emissions Damage Estimates. Implications for Welfare. Implications for Welfare. Distributional Implications of ACESA Under Perfect Targeting.
E N D
Distributional Implications of ACESA Under Perfect Targeting
Efficiency Implications of Federal Policy Under Alternative Allocation Rules Change in Scientific Welfare under ACESA: $14.7; Under PT: $12.5
Would ACESA Have Passed the US Senate? • No, it would have secured 50 votes, but needed 60 for passage.
Conclusions • Average implied external damages per legislative district are $0.07 per ton CO2e. • From the perspective of implied external costs, state policy (with offsets and trading) is less distortionary (welfare loss of $1.9 billion) than federal policy (welfare loss of $47.1 billion), although both lower welfare. • Welfare for climate believers is unchanged under federal policy and declines under state policy strategically, climate believers should prefer federal action to address climate change. • State policy that does not permit offsets or trading is likely to results in considerably
Conclusions • While implied preferences determine the policies that emerge in the model, in terms of the scientific external costs of climate change, both policies improve welfare, with federal policy leading to a welfare gain of $14.7 billion and state policy to a welfare gain of $4.4 billion. • Imperfect targeting is critical for securing the passage of federal climate policy. • IT allows for fence-sitting legislators to be brought on board, and since they are correlated to no voters, ensures that no voters receive a majority of permits and softens their welfare loss. • Rules that equally allocate permits or carbon tax revenue are not likely to achieve electoral success.
Conclusions • Perfect targeting would lead to an optimal policy that achieves a far more stringent cap. • This would be more considerably distortionary from the perspective of implied external costs, causing an implied welfare loss of $88.9 billion. • This would even cause a small decline in the scientific welfare gains from $14.7 billion under imperfect targeting to $12.5 billion under the optimal cap with perfect targeting. • This highlights the critical importance of accounting for how implied preferences determine policy choices, and how those critically impact the scientific welfare estimates of those policies.