Research Primer: Cap and Trade vs Carbon Tax
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has issued a handy comparison of cap and trade and a carbon tax as policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The free paper gives the edge to a cap and trade system.
Those in favor of cap and trade argue that it is the only approach that can guarantee that an environmental objective will be achieved, has been shown to effectively work to protect the environment at lower than expected costs, and is politically more attractive. Those supporting a carbon tax argue that it is a better approach because it is transparent, minimizes the involvement of government, and avoids the creation of new markets subject to manipulation.
“This review of cap and trade and taxes suggests that many of the longstanding myths about these approaches fail to recognize advances in design options aimed at addressing earlier concerns. While a tax regime sounds simpler in theory, history suggests that special provisions would be added, for example, to avoid adversely impacting specific regions, to exempt feedstocks and to mitigate competitiveness concerns. While a cap-and-trade regime doesn’t directly provide price certainty, recent proposals include temporal flexibility (e.g., banking, borrowing, and multi-year compliance periods) as well as floor prices and offset provisions that would dampen price volatility.”
In the end, history suggests that it is unlikely that a tax would result in a simpler system. The greater flexibility for firms and greater certainty that environmental objectives will be met appear to be the greatest strengths of a cap-and-trade policy.
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