re: #146 Aceofwhat?

Its dissimilarities are market-distorting. Allowances, unlike a tax, need to be distributed and managed by the government.

You know, because they’re so good at managing other important things, like oil rigs.

Why fool around with C/T when its best case scenario is an approximation of a pigovian tax when we can just apply a pigovian tax? I’m missing something here, probably - need your help.

I basically agree with you. A straight tax would be a much better solution. The problem is that it would also be much harder to pass (we can go into the reasons for this if you wish).

But C/T is not that much more bureaucratic. The government would indeed have to distribute the allowances, and of course all kinds of shady favoritisms and exceptions can happen at this stage. But beyond this point, companies pretty much just buy and sell emission right to each other.