Boot Camp

The Hoover Institution will host another "Policy Boot Camp" August 16-22. See here for details and how to apply. It's a one-week survey of serious policy analysis.

The program includes  economists such as John Taylor, Ed Lazear, Amit Seru, Caroline Hoxby, Erik Hurst, and yours truly. Learn about international affairs from H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis and  Condoleezza Rice. Niall Ferguson on Nationalism vs. Globalism and Bjorn Lomborg on climate should be worth it all on their own. And many more.

It's designed for "college students and recent graduates," but I think that is a bit elastic. Food and lodging free.

Update: in response to a commenter. Yes, PhD students and even those a year or two out are welcome. 

Ferguson and the billionaires at Davos

In my last post, I commented on Joe Stiglitz view, heading to Davos, that billionaires and corporate leaders are anxious to pollute the air.  In my wealth tax series I reported on the popular view on the Warren Sanders Saez Zucman view that corporate leaders and billionaires represent a regressive right wing political force, that must be stopped by any means including expropriation of their wealth, even if that means destroying the businesses that make them rich.

My colleague Niall Ferguson reports from Davos what seems actually to be on billionaires' minds: 

Take the World Economic Forum (WEF), the gathering of billionaires, millionaires, world leaders, do-gooders, busybodies and journalists that takes place each January in the Swiss resort of Davos. The overwhelming majority of people attending this year’s conference would, I have no doubt, affirm their commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to avert catastrophic climate change, even while on board their Gulfstreams and in their Range Rovers.

I doubt if a single chief executive present at the WEF last week would dare publicly to challenge the view that a modern corporation should rigorously measure and regulate its behaviour in terms of its environmental and social impact, as well as its quality of governance (ESG, for short). As the US Business Roundtable declared last August, firms must now be run not only for the benefit of their shareholders but also for all their “stakeholders”: customers, employees, suppliers and communities. Milton Friedman is dead. Long live Klaus Schwab — founder of the WEF — who pioneered this notion of stakeholder capitalism.

“ESG-omania” (or “ESG-apism”) meant Davos 2020 was an orgy of virtue-signalling on climate change and diversity. To walk down Davos Promenade, the main drag, was to run a gauntlet of uplifting corporate slogans: “Sustainable solutions for Earth, for life”; “A cohesive and sustainable world starts with data”; “Let’s bring sea level and C-level together”.

Each year the WEF’s global risks report tells us what the business elite is most worried about. Ten years ago, the top five risks were “Asset price collapse”, “China economic slowdown”, “Chronic disease”, “Fiscal crises” and “Global governance gaps”. This year? “Extreme weather”, “Climate action failure”, “Natural disasters”, “Biodiversity loss” and “Human-made environmental disasters”.

(Related, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Goldman Sachs will no longer fund fossil fuel development in the Arctic, or any US company that does not have women or "diverse" board members. And Jan 27, quotes "Salesforce chairman and co-CEO Mark Benhoff that "capitalism as we have known it is dead, and this obsession that we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality and a planetary emergency." ) 

In public, at least. In private, 

In quiet corners of the Davos congress centre you could hear Europeans wishing they could have at least a piece of this American action [Trumpian growth]— and complaining that Greta’s demand for “zero carbon now” was a recipe for zero growth.

... you say one thing in public and another in private. It was once the basis of life in communist systems all over the world. It turns out to be something capitalists can do just as easily, ...

Business people adopt whatever public views are convenient. And their public virtue-signaling means that winds now blow from the left. 

If Davos Man has come around to Trump — enough to expect, if not quite to hope, for his re-election — it is no guarantee that he will win on November 3. If January 2016 is anything to go by, you should probably bet against the Davos consensus and have a flutter on Bernie Sanders.

Niall organizes his thoughts around  "cognitive dissonance." Good old-fashioned "Hypocrisy" might be a more apt word. As in 

Do you give speeches about climate change at international conferences, having flown there by private jet? Do you ever sit in a big black car in a traffic jam, when you could quite easily have walked, despite knowing that this, too, is adding yet more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?

Exhibit A: 

In this green new world, Davos Man must now prostrate himself before Stockholm Girl: 17-year-old Greta Thunberg, who delivered her latest tirade on Tuesday morning. “We don’t need a ‘low-carbon economy,’ ” she declared. “We don’t need to ‘lower emissions’. Our emissions have to stop. ...

I love Greta Thunberg, because she exposes the immense hypocrisy of the political climate establishment. When she went to school, she received the same alarmist pablum handed out to children around the world -- the climate is a crisis. Civilization is going to end. The world will be a red hot cinder in your lifetime. We have exactly 11 years to stop it. The other children, like those in communist countries including China today, understood the game. Mouth the pieties, get a good grade on the test, don't argue, and go out to play. Greta, who describes herself as neuro-diverse, took it seriously and literally. Well, if the planet is going to fry in exactly 11 years we darn well had better do something about it, and not just virtue-signal in our PR statements and buy some phony carbon offsets when we fly the Gulfstream back from Davos.

Niall's last point is excellent:

In the same way, if it’s climate change the WEF-ers are most worried about, you should probably brace yourself for a coronavirus pandemic. Talking of cognitive dissonance, what the hell were we all doing at a massive global conference last week? Fact: at least three of the WEF attendees were from — you guessed it — Wuhan.

What are the really big risks in the next 10 years? Pandemic, nuclear war, civil war, government collapse. The ones very few people are paying any attention to. The big ones are never the ones conventional wisdom sees coming a hundred years away.

Update:

On reflection, hypocrisy is not a good word either. What do you call the behavior, of mouthing platitudes that you know to be meaningless or false, from good old self interest? You know a Warren or Sanders presidency is a good possibility, and they will use the regulatory and judicial machinery ruthlessly. So let's get those public statements and virtue signals out fast -- support for "stakeholder" capitalism, climate crisis, "ESG" metrics or whatever it takes. You know that social climbing at Davos, your nonprofit boards,  (your hope to become dean someday, in academia) or just avoiding the twitter mob demand conformity. So you mouth the harder and harder to pronounce words, or even convince yourself of the worthiness of it all.  There must be a good word in  Russian, the art of getting along under a communist regime.  We say "virtue-signaling" but that does not cover the self-interest of going along with the crowd. I welcome suggestions for a good word.

Climate clarity

The  carbon elephant in the room: (Data from EIA)

Bans on fracking and nuclear power

If you want evidence that climate policy has become unhinged from science and quantification, becoming more like a religious cult, look no further than the recent Democratic presidential candidates' proposals to ban fracking immediately and nuclear power soon.

From Michael Cembalest at JP Morgan

I'm not a denier. Yes, carbon is a problem, warming is a problem, and a uniform carbon tax, vast expansion of nuclear energy, more renewables, lots of R&D on them, GMO foods, and geoenginnering are solutions. (If indeed warmer weather is an existential crisis, and if indeed $2 billion of soot in the upper atmosphere solves it, that should at least be on the table.) Actual, quantitative, scientific solutions. They don't atone for our carbon sins.

A ban on fracking and nuclear are not solutions, and will raise carbon emissions.  The US is doing better on carbon reduction than other countries, because of fracking and natural gas.  Unlike Germany, who has followed these policies, we cannot rely on Eastern European coal and Russian gas.

I am delighted to see that despite my fears of how extensive discretionary regulation will silence dissent, Mr Cembalest can still write such a note, with the JP Morgan imprimatur. We'll see how long such heresy  survives more intense financial regulation and "stakeholder" control of corporate boards.   "Eco-authoriarianism" and a "coercive green new  deal"  are already openly advocated, here for example.

Ip on carbon tax

Over the weekend, Greg Ip at WSJ wrote a  nice piece on the carbon tax.

Greg addresses some common objections.

This urge to stop at nothing to find an effective solution is understandable. How can you put a price tag on the future of the planet?

..Green New Deal backers make another powerful argument: Global emissions levels are still rising, and to reverse them, carbon prices would have to be so high they’d be politically toxic. Better, the activists argue, to simply go straight to a massive, government-directed transition. 

This attitude is common. But there is no evading economics. Either you have visible economic damage (carbon tax) of $1,000 per ton or invisible economic damage of $10,000 per ton.  Prices are better than restrictions because you can see where you're wasting $10,000 per ton, which money could reduce 9 times as much carbon properly deployed.

There is also a political judgment here that people will not stand for a visible tax, but will stand politically, or perhaps be too stupid to notice, the much larger shadow price of direct controls. They won't pay $5 at the pump for gas, but will stand for banning cars. I don't think that's true. I don't think the left thinks it's true either. The way the Green New Deal and even the IPCC reports now bundle carbon reduction with a vast left-wing political agenda, and a rather Orwellian drive to silence criticism confirms it.

Carbon tax update

An interesting question emerged from some discussion surrounding my last carbon tax post. How big will the tax be? The letter says $40 a ton, but then rising. But how far? And in response to what question?

It occurs to me that the two obvious targets lead to radically different answers.

1) The social cost of carbon. This is what economists usually think of as the appropriate Pigouvian tax. In order to pollute, you pay the cost you impose on others by your pollution.

Even the worst-case scenarios now put the cost of carbon emissions at 10% of GDP in the year 2100. Discount that back, divide by all the carbon emitted between now and then, and, you're going to get a pretty small tax.

2) Temperature or quantitative guidelines. Or, "whatever it takes to stop the global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees C." Such a tax has to be high enough to basically stop us  from using fossil fuels. It would be radically higher, and impose economic costs far higher than 10% of GDP.

When you set a goal of a quantity with no attached price, the price can get pretty high.

I see now some of the back and forth chatter. Anti-carbon types warn that any tax "won't be enough." Now I know what they mean.

So who sets the tax, and on what basis, are important issues we're all fudging over.

Of course, a cynic would take the view that the tax will be set to

3) Maximize government revenue.

Given the behavioral elasticities, that is likely to be a good deal less than #2, as to high a tax will quickly erode the tax base.

PS: to my may CO2-is-not-a-problem commenters. If (or perhaps when) it's all proved to be a hoax, a carbon tax is a lot easier to undo than the alternative regulatory approach!

Economists' letter on carbon

The "Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends" in the Wall Street Journal this week is a remarkable document. It's short, sweet, and signed by, as far as I can tell, every living CEA chair, every living Fed Chair, both Democrat and Republican, and most of the living Nobel Prize winners. (Thanks to a commenter who corrected an earlier count.)

It offers four principles 1. A carbon tax, initially $40 per ton. 2. The carbon tax substitutes for regulations and subsidies and (my words) the vast crony-capitalist green boondoggle swamp, which is chewing up money and not saving carbon. 3. Border adjustment like VAT have 4. "All the revenue should be returned directly to U.S. citizens through equal lump-sum rebates."

That the carbon tax is better than regulations and subsidies in choosing technology gets a lot of press. Yes, should we have rooftop solar cells or utility cells in the desert? Is it better to have battery powered cars or high speed trains? Do we really have to have washing machines that no longer actually clean clothes? And the only way to actually save lots of carbon -- nuclear -- has a much better chance under a carbon tax than hoping our political system will allow it.

But most people forget what economists know best -- that a carbon tax is the only way to change behavior. The answer to energy savings isn't as much new technology as in old behaviors. Turn the lights off. Take fewer trips. Turn the heat down. Move nearer your work. Carpool. Without a carbon tax there is no way for the average bleeding heart Palo Alto climate worrier to realize that one trip to Europe is like driving a car for 10,000 miles. (Planes get about 80 passenger miles per gallon -- but it's a lot of miles to Europe.) Twenty years ago, my then 8 year old daughter, reading about fuel economy standards, piped up "if they make cars more fuel efficient, it will be cheaper to drive. Won't people just move further away?" Indeed.

I try to sell a carbon tax deal to friends who are climate skeptics. Well, our government is going to do something. Given that fact, the carbon tax will cause much less damage than ever increasing regulations and subsidies. And I try to sell it to carbon warrior friends too. The tax instead of the regulations and subsidies, in our political system, is going to save you a lot more carbon.

The last proposal is, I think, the most contentious. Optimal taxation theory, as several of the signatories pointed out in other contexts, says that the carbon tax should go to reduce other distorting taxes. This will create more economic growth. As Holman Jenkins  put it,

A tax reform that included a carbon tax to replace taxes that depress work, saving and investment would be an incentive to do everything in a less carbon-intensive way, bringing forth new technologies 

Here the authors step back from benevolent-planner optimums and think politically. Well, we live in a political system.

But there is a bright side. One big point of the dividend is to guarantee that revenues will not go to financing ever larger green boondoggles like the California high-speed train to nowhere, or to subsidize a Tesla in every VCs driveway. Carbon dividend means no "green new deal." The view that the tax system is what it is, and a major new source of revenue will not go to reducing marginal tax rates in a growth-oriented reform sounds quite realistic to me. If our Congress were interested in growth-oriented tax system it would already look a lot different than it is today.

A flat dividend is also immensely progressive. It is, effectively a universal basic income. And casual observation on ownership of large houses and jet travel suggests wealth people spew a lot more carbon than poor ones. I guess that is an effort to get Democrats to give up some of their cherished regulations and subsidies to get these long sought goals. (Like any UBI, it's going to make immigration a tougher issue, but we won't go there today.)

Tyler Cowen disagrees with the dividend.

"It strikes me as economists thinking they know what makes good politics, something which economists are rarely good at."

Well, he has a point, and I also think economists should emphasize more when they have expertise and when they don't. On the other hand, I don't see anybody else having much better idea what makes good politics these days, and the list of "economists" that created and signed the letter, starting with George Shultz, have immense political experience.

The dividend may not be the economically most efficient thing to do, but it will guarantee a lifetime of political support for the carbon tax! Hamilton figured this out with the assumption of national debt.

It has taken me some time to come around, as attached as I am to reducing marginal tax rates, but the political advantage that out keeps the money from being spent on boondoggles, and creates a constituency in favor of the tax and against spending the results on boondoggles, is strong.

I also worry about the wide range of environmental issues that have been forgotten in the Great Carbon War. Butterflies and Frogs are disappearing. The pacific garbage patch grows. Rhinos and Elephants will be gone long before climate bothers them. Take your pick, if we passed the carbon tax, and if this issue could disappear as one of the issues uniting partisanship and sweeping up the entire environmental movement, it would be a lot better for life on the planet.  Once upon a time, there were Republicans in the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Greenpeace, and other formerly non-partisan organizations. Put carbon behind us, and it could be so again.

"Big Names Bake a Climate Pie in the Sky" complained Holman Jenkins. His complaint, largely, is that the deal won't be kept -- we'll get the tax and regulations, and the dividend promise will disappear into the bowels of Washington.

Besides, since we face a “climate emergency,” wouldn’t the money be better spent on speeding up deployment of wind and solar? As for existing mandates and subsidies, sure, we might expend additional political energy to repeal these. And pigs might fly. 

This is an important point. As reducing marginal rates and removing deductions sounds nice, our tax reforms (especially the last) reduce marginal rates but don't remove deductions. The VAT with no income tax is a much better system, but many free market economists don't favor it because they don't trust the deal. Trusting the deal, carbon tax in return for no regulations, is a stretch.

However, I can hope that a deal could be struck, carbon tax in return for no new regulations and subsidies, or subsidy extensions -- no "Green New Deal."  If we give up that deals can ever be struck and kept, we might as well give up on democracy.

Of course, in the 5th week of a shutdown, over a completely symbolic issue, with great deals on the table that benefit both sides, if only each could let the other have a symbolic victory, is not a great time to advance such hope. But even here, once you realize the shutdown has nothing to do with immigration, you see hope. This is a battle to the end over the Trump presidency. If he backs down, his presidency is finished. The Democrats think they can achieve that, and if they back down their left wing takes over. There is no way out of that one -- and reason to hope that when Washington is bargaining over actual policy and not over a symbolic but life-and-death battle, that they can do it.

Carbon Tax

Source: Seattle Times

"The carbon tax is dead; long live the carbon tax" is the headline of Tyler Cowen's Bloomberg column on the failed (again) Washington State carbon tax.  And rather decisively, per the picture on the left.

"Maybe its failure on the ballot in Washington state will inspire economists to come up with better arguments" challenges the subhead. I can't resist.

The key question for a carbon tax is, what do you get in return? What do you do with the money? Washington's carbon tax would have, according to the Seattle Times,

It would have taken effect in 2020, rising year after year to finance a multibillion-dollar spending surge intended to cut Washington greenhouse-gas emissions. The initiative reflected proponents’ faith that an activist government can play a key role in speeding up a transition to cleaner fuels.

The fee would have raised more than $1 billion annually by 2023, with spending decisions to be made by a governor-appointed board as well as the state’s utilities

Well, perhaps the voters of Washington State were not so much against a carbon tax per se, but had less than full faith that a large increase in green boondoggle spending by Washington State government was a good idea. They need only to look south at California's high speed train to see cost-benefit analysis at work in dollars per ton of carbon saved.

And in fact it violates the whole idea of a carbon tax. The point of a carbon tax is to give people and businesses an incentive to figure out their own ways to cut carbon emissions. The whole point is not to fund big government projects. If you want to fund big government projects, you do it out of the broadest based and fairest tax you can find.

As Tyler suggested,

But maybe it’s time for a change in tactics. These new approaches might start with the notion that we can address climate change without transferring more money from voters to politicians.

Here are three ideas:

Idea 1: One answer is obvious: a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Use the carbon tax to offset other taxes. Tyler anticipates this with

The economist can respond, correctly, that a carbon tax will ease the path to greener outcomes, and that other taxes can be cut as recompense if necessary. But it seems right now there is not enough trust for such a grand bargain to be struck. 

Perhaps. But if the carbon tax were coupled with an explicit reduction in other taxes, it might help to convince people. If carbon taxes were coupled with elimination of other taxes, it would help more. Taxes are like zombies. If you just lower the rates they tend to come back. If you eliminate them entirely, perhaps requiring referendum for their reinstatement, there can be more trust. Couple the carbon tax with elimination of, say, state property taxes, income taxes, or sales taxes.

And in the end we all know taxes must equal spending. You can convince voters there won't be more taxes if there isn't more spending. Advertising the carbon tax as a substitute for carbon spending; simultaneously eliminating green boondoggles, would help to seal the deal.

Idea 2: The Baker-Shultz plan, or Americans for Carbon Dividends, (previous blog post here) has another bright idea: Send the proceeds back to the voters. Write everyone a nice check. This ensures that the money doesn't go to boondoggles, and gives every voter a stake in keeping the scheme going. It is highly progressive, which Democrats should like.

I had a similar idea a while ago: Rather than a tax, give each American a right to, say x tons of carbon emissions that they can sell on a carbon market. That also gives everyone an incentive to vote for the system. And it states the issue squarely. You, a voter, are having your air polluted. You have a right to collect on that damage. It makes it clear that carbon is a fee, a penalty, not a "tax." The point is to disincentivize the use of carbon, not to raise revenue for the government to spend. "Tax" is a loaded word in American culture and politics. Carbon rights takes the whole discussion away from "tax."

Idea 3: Lastly, one could pair the carbon tax and fee with a trade: A hefty fee, in return for elimination of all the other carbon subsidies and regulations. To those who don't believe in climate change: ok, but our government is going to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Let's cut out the rot and just pay a simple fee instead. No more electric car subsidies -- $15 k from taxpayers to each Tesla owner in Palo Alto -- HOV lanes, windmill subsidies, rooftop solar mandates, washing machines that don't wash clothes anymore (hint: do NOT buy any washing machine built since Jan 1 2018), and so on and so forth.

I think on the left the strategy has been to ramp up climate hysteria: if we just yell louder and demonize opponents more, the voters will buy it. No matter how much of a problem you think climate is, let's admit that's not working. In part the claims are now so over the top that everyone can tell it's gone too far. No, the way to put out fires in California is not to build a high speed train.

When, in the name of science the IPCC writes things like this -- right up front in the executive summary --

D3.2. ...For example, if poorly designed or implemented, adaptation projects in a range of sectors can increase... increase gender and social inequality... adaptations that include attention to poverty and sustainable development (high confidence).  

D6. Sustainable development supports, and often enables, the fundamental societal and systems transitions and transformations that help limit global warming to 1.5°C. ... in conjunction with poverty eradication and efforts to reduce inequalities (high confidence).... 

D6.1. Social justice and equity are core aspects of climate-resilient development pathways that aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C... 

D7.2. Cooperation on strengthened accountable multilevel governance that includes non-state actors such as industry, civil society and scientific institutions, coordinated sectoral and cross-sectoral policies at various governance levels, gender-sensitive policies.... (high confidence). 

D7.4. Collective efforts at all levels, ... taking into account equity as well as effectiveness, can facilitate strengthening the global response to climate change, achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty (high confidence)

You can't blame the suspicious Washington State voter from wondering if perhaps a larger agenda isn't being financed here.

There is a sensible middle. Voters who want to do something about carbon, but not finance massive boondoggles or a collectivist progressive agenda. Environmentalists who want to do something about carbon that actually will work. Skeptics who understand, as long as we're going to so something, let's do it efficiently via a carbon fee rather than at massive cost as we are doing now.

Cause, effect, and carbon

“As fires rage up and down the state of California, costing our taxpayers billions of dollars and threatening our families’ health—- the need for California to move to 100% clean, renewable energy could not be more urgent,” said Mr. de León in a statement.

Sen. Kevin de León, a Democrat who is waging a long-shot run for a U.S. Senate seat against incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

Reported in the Wall Street Journal

The context is

California passed legislation Tuesday that would make it the first large state to mandate completely carbon-free electricity generation, with a target of 2045.

My understanding is that nuclear does not count as "carbon free."

Just to belabor the obvious, the central part of our state has been living under a blanket of smoke most of the summer. Smoke causes an immediate and local pollution problem, which is a direct threat to human health -- fine particulate matter.  Yet the state has cut its firefighting air fleet and budget over the past few years, and also let fuel accumulate in forests over the winter.

California contributes maybe 1% of global carbon emissions. Guesstimate for yourself how much California carbon-free energy by 2045 will do to reduce wildfires in your grandchildren's lifetime.  "Urgent?"

If you think global warming is real, and that it will increase wildfires, it seems you would be rushing to spend money on putting out fires.

Instead, our state government seems to regard wildfires as punishments for our carbon sins, that only praying to the Temple of Carbon with largely symbolic billions of dollars can salve. Actually doing something about problems the West has always had -- wildfires -- that may be moving north a bit due to global warming seems to be regarded as an immoral act.

I am also interested by the fantastical cause-and-effect thinking going on here, and the flight from any vaguely quantifiable dollars per unit of effect. And this from the self-described "party of science."

Alexander Hamilton's solar panels

I think I finally have figured out why California is mandating solar panels on top of houses. (WSJ story here.)

As energy, environmental, or housing policy, it borders on the absurd, as pretty much everyone quickly figured out.

Just to recap, remember that most rooftop solar does not power the house underneath it. The energy goes out to the grid. Why not, you ask? Well, the rooftop energy comes at the wrong time, and we don't yet have economical storage, so you have to be connected to the grid anyway. Given that, the costs of switches to let the roof partially power the house at sometimes, power the grid at other times, is not worth the zero benefit. After all, electricity is electricity and your light bulb does not care where it came from.

So rooftops are just a place to put the electric utility's solar panels. Now let's consider, where is the best place to put solar panels that feed the grid?

Option A:

(OK, in reality the Mojave desert, or the vast stretches of wasteland along I-5 pockmarked with angry farmer billboards, but the camels are cute.)

Option B: The roof of a typical northern California house:

http://www.redwoodhikes.com/Dewitt/Dewitt.html

(OK, I'm having fun with this one, but you get the point. Actually a house off the grid is one place where rooftop solar does make a lot of sense, but you don't have to force people to buy them in that case.)

To belabor the point, people like to build houses near trees. Trees shading roofs are heavily protected in Palo Alto where I live, and you risk massive fines if you cut one down. House roofs don't always pitch to the southwest at the optimum angle.

A house is an expensive and flammable structure for a solar panel. You need to be a lot more careful putting it up there than out in the desert. In California especially, each installation needs a separate design, design review, permits, and so on. Code requirements are stringent. Each installation needs big switches, where the fire department can get at them (and a separate one for the battery). Each house needs a separate set of switches to connect to the grid. All of these fixed costs are spread way out on a commercial solar farm out in the desert.

And so on. We don't operate tiny coal burning generators in each house for the same good reasons.

So why is California doing it? Grumpy free marketers tend to bemoan nitwit liberalism, but economics teaches us to look for rational maximizing actors even in government.

So here is a suggestion. It's actually a brilliant move. Large-scale rooftop solar is only sustained by subsidies -- tax credits for installation and the requirement that homeowners can sell power to their fellow citizens (through the utility) at above-market rates. To put the matter mildly, not everybody thinks these subsidies are a good idea, and moreover you can't count on Washington to maintain subsidies for the 30 year lifespan of solar panels. You never know, someone like, say, Donald Trump might get elected president and start tearing apart energy subsidies.

So, once solar panels are on the rooftops of thousands of registered voters, you have a natural constituency that will vote and otherwise pressure the state, the administration, congress, and agencies to continue solar subsidies. 

The Alexander Hamilton story is that he wanted the US federal government to take on the state debts from the revolutionary war, in part to create a class of bondholders who would support the federal government's ability to raise taxes, to pay off that debt. Putting solar panels on houses, though ridiculously inefficient from an energy or environment point of view, achieves the same thing, in a nefarious sort of way.

Too bad they can't just give each of us a solar panel out in the desert, the way some charities show you "your" child in some third-world country. Once a year, you get a card "Happy holidays! I'm your solar panel, number 3457 in the Mojave desert. I've had a great year pumping out electricity! Here is your check for $357.52 in subsidies and power generation. Remember to vote on election day!"

EPA, the nature of regulation, and democracy

My Hoover colleague Richard Epstein posted a revealing essay on the nature of environmental regulation last week, with environmental regulation as a particular example. The contrast with "Environmental Laws Under Siege: Here is why we have them"  in New York Times  and the New Yorker's  Scott Pruitt's Dirty Politics is instructive

Epstein's point is not about the raw amount of or even what's in the regulation, but the procedure by which regulation is imposed:

As drafted, NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 ] contains no provision that allows private parties to challenge agency decisions in court. Instead, the NEPA approval process is a matter for internal agency consultation and deliberation that takes into account comments submitted by any interested parties. 

One year after its passage, NEPA was turned upside down in a key decision by Judge J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals... Wright read the law as giving private parties the right to challenge government actions. Indeed, Wright welcomed such challenges, writing (admiringly) that the change, “promises to become a flood of new litigation—litigation seeking judicial assistance in protecting our natural environment.”

Giving private parties the right to challenge an agency decision grants enormous leverage to the private parties most opposed to letting projects go forward. In the case of nuclear power, delay became the order of the day, as the D.C. Circuit on which Judge Wright sat arrogated to itself the power to find that any EA or EIS was insufficient in some way, so that the entire project was held up until a new and exhaustively updated EIS was prepared—which could then be duly challenged yet again in court.

Two on energy subsidies

The WSJ has two good and related opeds on energy and transport subsidies recently, Randall O'Toole on Last Stop on the Light-Rail Gravy Train and Lee Ohanian and  Ted Temzelides write on energy and transport subsidies

O'Toole:

Last month, Nashville Mayor Megan Berry announced a $5.2 billion proposal that involves building 26 miles of light rail and digging an expensive tunnel under the city’s downtown. Voters will be asked in May to approve a half-cent sales tax increase plus additions to hotel, car rental and business excise taxes to pay for the project.

Just in time for self-driving Ubers to arrive.

I love trains. But we have to admit practicalities. One transportation economist summed all there is to know about transit with "Bus Good. Train Bad." (With a few exceptions, such as Manhattan.)  And light rail, worse. Trains are expensive, and once built, immobile. If people want to go somewhere else, tough. Rolling stock lasts around 50 years, meaning they bake in technical obsolescence. Trains carry far fewer people per lane-mile than busses. And a fleet of self-driving Ubers linked by computer will be able to use bus lanes.

Actually, even buses are more and more questionable. As I wait for the interminable lights on El Camino to cross to Stanford (on bicycle), I have taken to counting passengers on the well-subsidized bus line. The modal number is zero.

As Randy has pointed out elsewhere, the main beneficiaries of light rail are suburban largely white commuters with a nostalgia thing for trains. The main people paying for it are inner city minorities who don't get bus service anymore.

To pay for new light-rail lines that opened in 2012 and 2016, Los Angeles cut bus service. The city lost nearly four bus riders for every additional rail rider.

Congestion got you down? Real time tolling, adjusted minute by minute, will either cure traffic congestion forever, or will bail out indebted local governments with massive revenues, or both. Or, let people live somewhere near where they work!

Lee and Ted consider the transition from horse to auto and truck,

‘In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under 9 feet of manure.” With this 1894 prediction, the London Times warned that the era’s primary source of transportation energy—the horse—would soon create an environmental crisis. ...

The enormous demand for a cleaner and more efficient source of energy led to remarkable innovations in the internal combustion engine. By 1920 horses in cities had been almost entirely replaced by affordable autos and trucks...

And to be honest, horse manure replaced by auto exhaust -- but as bad as auto exhaust is, it's a lot better than horse manure.

Suppose governments in the 1890s, desperate to replace the horse, had jumped on the first available alternative, the steam engine. Heavy subsidies would have produced more steam engines and more research on steam technology. This would only have waylaid the development of the far superior internal combustion engine. 

Source: Obtainium works. 

(Actually, the government did subsidize railroads a good deal, and perhaps by doing so did stall the development of the truck.)

More than horse manure, I love the image of an alternate reality steampunk America...At left a cool  steampunk RV. (Image source)

Which brings us back, I'm afraid to the main force behind rail subsidies, which Randall has pointed out before: Nostalgia. Nostalgia for what seems like a simpler age. I understand that too. I love trains. But that doesn't make them practical, especially at billions of dollars per mile.

If we're doing nostalgia, how about doing it full time -- high speed stagecoach lines? Bring back the horse! It's all renewable!'

Duet Redux

Another duet of headlines with an interesting lesson, both from the Wall Street Journal:

Solar power death wish

Suniva Inc., a bankrupt solar-panel maker, and German-owned SolarWorld Americas have petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to impose tariffs on foreign-made crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. 

Solar cells in the U.S. sell for around 27 cents a watt. The petitioners want to add a new duty of 40 cents a watt. They also want a floor price for imported panels of 78 cents a watt versus the market price of 37 cents. 

they’re resorting to Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 because they don’t need to show they are victims of dumping or foreign government subsidies. They only need to show that imports have harmed them

California Democrats Target Tesla

The United Automobile Workers are struggling for a presence in Tesla’s Fremont plant, and organized labor has called in a political favor. 

Since 2010 California has offered a $2,500 rebate to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles. But last week, at unions’ behest, Democrats introduced an amendment to cap-and-trade spending legislation that would require participating manufacturers to get a sign-off from the state labor secretary verifying that they are “fair and responsible in their treatment of workers.” 

The legislation, which passed Friday, is a direct shot at Tesla. The Clean Vehicle Rebate Project has amounted to a $82.5 million subsidy for the company

Both moves ought to pose a liberal conundrum. If you want carbon reduction, you want cheap solar cells, so that more people will buy them. The planet does not care where the solar cells are produced. If you want electric cars, you want cheap electric cars so that more people will buy them.

But those who falsely sold green energy as a job producer, a boon to the economy; not a costly alternative to fossil fuels, a cost that must be borne to save the planet, now face this conundrum.

The deeper lesson here is the corrosive nature of subsidies and protection. Once the government starts subsidizing solar cells and electric cars, there is a quite natural force demanding access to the subsidies. Why should the owners of the Tesla company get largesse from the taxpayers, and not their workers too?

Solar cells are just the latest embodiment of the infant industry fallacy -- that protection from competition will allow an industry to grow and become competitive.  Instead, they become infantile industries, expert and getting protections and subsidies not producing cheap solar cells.

The infrastructure paradox is similar. We need infrastructure. Yet federal contracting requirements, requirements for union workers and union wages, and everything else attracted to federal money being handed out, drive costs up to astronomical levels.

For energy, this is an abject lesson in the wisdom of a simple carbon (and methane) tax in place of all the subsidies and winner-and-loser-picking our government does. (Let's not fight about whether to do it. The point is if we want to restrict fossil fuels and subsidize a move to non-carbon energy, this is how to do it.) Subsidies and protection invite demands for subsidies and protection, not clean energy.

In the name of Science

Source: climatefeedback.org

"Climate Feedback" has produced a "scientific review" of my WSJ oped with David Henderson on (Oped ungated full text here, see also associated blog post.)

In the blog post, I wrote,

"If it is not clear enough, nothing in this piece takes a stand on climate science, either affirming or denying current climate forecasts. I will be interested to see how quickly we are painted as unscientific climate-deniers."

Now we know the answer. 

To recap, the oped said nothing about climate science, nothing about climate computer model forecasts, and did not even question the integrated model forecasts of economic damage. We did not deny either climate change nor did we argue against CO2 mitigation policies in principle. For argument's sake we granted a rather extreme forecast (level of GDP reduced by 10% forever) of economic costs. We did not even question the highly questionable cost-benefit analyses of policies subject to cost benefit analysis. We mostly complained about the lack of any cost benefit analysis, and the quantitative nonsense of many claims.

So, it's curious that there could be any "scientific" review of a purely economic article in the first place. How do they do it? 

On climate change 2

Now that 30 days have passed I can post the full Wall Street Journal climate change oped with David Henderson. The previous post has more commentary. A pdf is here.

By David R. Henderson and  John H. Cochrane
July 30, 2017 4:24 p.m. ET

Climate change is often misunderstood as a package deal: If global warming is “real,” both sides of the debate seem to assume, the climate lobby’s policy agenda follows inexorably.

It does not. Climate policy advocates need to do a much better job of quantitatively analyzing economic costs and the actual, rather than symbolic, benefits of their policies. Skeptics would also do well to focus more attention on economic and policy analysis.

To arrive at a wise policy response, we first need to consider how much economic damage climate change will do. Current models struggle to come up with economic costs commensurate with apocalyptic political rhetoric. Typical costs are well below 10% of gross domestic product in the year 2100 and beyond.

That’s a lot of money—but it’s a lot of years, too. Even 10% less GDP in 100 years corresponds to 0.1 percentage point less annual GDP growth. Climate change therefore does not justify policies that cost more than 0.1 percentage point of growth. If the goal is 10% more GDP in 100 years, pro-growth tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms would be far more effective.

Carbon compromise?

In a remarkable and clear oped "A Conservative Answer to Climate Change" James Baker and George Shultz lay out the case for a carbon tax in place of the complex, cronyist and ineffective regulatory approach to controlling carbon emissions.

A plea to commenters. Don't fall in to the trap of arguing whether climate change is real or whether carbon (and methane) contribute to it. That's 5% of the debate. The real debate is how much economic damage does climate change actually do. Science might tell us that the temperature will warm 2 degrees in a century, with a band of uncertainty. But the band of uncertainty of the economic, social and political consequences of 2 degrees is much bigger. Moreover, the band of relative uncertainty is bigger still. Does "science," as the IPCC claims, really tell us that climate change is the greatest danger facing us -- above nuclear war, pandemic, state failure, and so on?

And most of all, given that our governments are going to do something about climate change, how can we do something much more efficient, and (plea to environmentalists) much more effective? That's the question worth debating.

Both sides have fallen in to the trap of arguing about climate change itself, as if it follows inexorably that our governments must respond to "yes" with the current system of controls and interventions. The range of economic and environmental effects from the "how" question are much, much larger than the range of the effects of the "is climate change real" question.

So, Baker and Shultz lay out in gorgeous clarity the kind of compromise we all hope our governments can still occasionally achieve: Given that we're going to do something, trade a carbon tax for the removal of intrusive regulation. You get more economy and less carbon.

The oped refers to a report from the Climate Leadership Council, which is here and worth reading. The Niskanen Center has also been championing the case, and reaching out to environmental groups.

There is a natural bargain, if our political system can get around its current habit of take-no-prisoners maximalism.

Blueprint for America

"Blueprint for America" is a collection of essays, organized, edited and inspired by George P. Shultz. You can get an overview and chapter by chapter pdfs here. The hardcover will be available from Amazon or Hoover Press October 1.

Some of the inspiration for this project came from the remarkable 1980 memo (here) to President-elect Ronald Reagan from his Coordinating Committee on Economic Policy.

Like that memo, this is a book about governance, not politics.  It's not partisan -- copies are being sent to both campaigns. It's not about choosing or spinning policies to attract voters or win elections.

The book is about long-term policies and policy frameworks -- how policy is made, return to rule of law, is as important as what the policy is --  that can fix America's problems. It focuses on what we think are the important issues as well as policies to address those issues -- it does not address every passion of the latest two-week news cycle.

The book comprises the answers we would give to an incoming Administration of any party, or incoming Congress, if they asked us for a policy package that is best for the long-term welfare of the country.

The chapters, to whet your appetite:

Transport innovation

What is it?

I saw this in the parking lot of the hotel where I'm staying. Inspection: yes, it's the chassis of an early 1970s VW, with motor and transmission in place. The motor appears functional. It's connected to the gas cans. Yet, this is a trailer. Why? (Hint: it's parked next to a new Toyota CRV electric car.)

NBER AP

On Friday I attended the NBER Asset Pricing meeting (program here) in Chicago, organized by Adrien Verdelhan and Debby Lucas. The papers were unusually interesting, even by the high standards of this meeting. Alas the NBER doesn't post slides so I don't have great visuals to show you.

An essay. It's an overview of what a growth-oriented policy program might look like. Regulation, finance, health, energy and environment, taxes, debt social security and medicare, social programs, labor law, immigration, education, and more. There is a more permanent version here and pdf version here. This version shows on blogger, but if your reader mangles it, the version on my blog or one of the above will work better.

I wrote it the Focusing the presidential debates initiative. The freedom of authors in that initiative to disagree is clear.

Economic Growth

Growth is central

Sclerotic growth is the overriding economic issue of our time. From 1950 to 2000 the US economy grew at an average rate of 3.5% per year. Since 2000, it has grown at half that rate, 1.7%. From the bottom of the great recession in 2009, usually a time of super-fast catch-up growth, it has only grown at two percent per year.² Two percent, or less, is starting to look like the new normal.

Small percentages hide a large reality. The average American is more than three times better off than his or her counterpart in 1950. Real GDP per person has risen from $16,000 in 1952 to over $50,000 today, both measured in 2009 dollars. Many pundits seem to remember the 1950s fondly, but $16,000 per person is a lot less than $50,000!

If the US economy had grown at 2% rather than 3.5% since 1950, income per person by 2000 would have been $23,000 not $50,000. That’s a huge difference. Nowhere in economic policy are we even talking about events that will double, or halve, the average American’s living standards in the next generation.

Even these large numbers understate reality.