Articles by Ryan Avent
Ryan Avent is a freelance economics writer living in Washington, D.C. He blogs at ryanavent.com, and at The Economist's Free Exchange.
All Articles
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A Post columnist’s defenders can’t salvage his poor cap-and-trade logic
Tyler Cowen weighs in on the cap-and-trade debate. He focuses on my criticism of Samuelson’s seeming failure to understand the relationship between cap-and-trade and a carbon tax: But Samuelson is correct here and Avent is misleading. When there is uncertainty about the location of the social optimum, and uncertainty about elasticities, a carbon tax and […]
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Climate bills will only get better from here
Mark Thoma, whose Economist’s View is an excellent resource for all things economic, posts a roundup of writing on cap-and-trade versus a carbon tax, including a good primer on how the economics work and why the two plans are so similar. He also excerpts a rather cynical take by Pete Davis on the political reasons […]
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Carbon pricing is about tweaking the little, everyday decisions we make
I’d like to add one quick addendum to my previous post on cap-and-trade. When we consider the extent to which we need to reduce our emissions in the abstract, it can appear quite daunting. This is especially the case when we look at the needed reductions and then focus on how big a role coal […]
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How not to inform readers about cap-and-trade
Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson has long impressed me as one of the most hackish economic columnists not associated with the Wall Street Journal and not named Ben Stein, but today’s piece on cap-and-trade is dismally, embarrassingly stupid. Its essential premise is that consumers and producers of energy don’t respond to price signals, something so […]
