Category — Krugman, Paul

Paul Krugman has been on the warpath lately regarding climate change economics. He has devoted his last two NYT columns (here and here) to the subject, as well as back-to-back blog posts (here and here). True to form, Krugman accuses those who disagree with him of abject stupidity and evil intent; for Krugman it is impossible that any decent economist who cares about human beings could actually think the costs of cap-and-trade legislation will be high. But as we’ll see, Krugman’s own figures don’t jibe with the narrative he’s pushing.

In his September 27 blog post, Krugman takes up his familiar theme of denouncing those who dare to say that Waxman-Markey carries a large price tag. After using a diagram to explain the textbook distinction between the compliance costs of a new tax (or mandate), versus the “deadweight loss,” Krugman excoriates economist Martin Feldstein for allegedly spreading lies:

[Feldstein] took the CBO’s estimate of “compliance costs”, which was $1600 per household in an early report (it’s now down to $900, but who’s counting?), and implied that this was the economic cost of the legislation. But “compliance costs” are basically the sum of the blue rectangle and the red triangle; the true economic costs are just the triangle, and are much smaller.

OK now, this is quite simply hilarious, if you can follow me through the argument. I really don’t think Krugman realizes just how much his pants are down on this one.

First off, Krugman is correct that there really is a distinction between the impact of a new tax in terms of paying extra revenues, versus the overall loss to the economy because of distorted incentives. But when the public wants to know “how much will cap-and-trade cost?”, it is quite reasonable for them to wonder, “How much will my electricity bill, or gasoline prices, go up because of this?” Most people do not realize that Krugman & Co. are netting out the gains to the recipients of free allowances and government expenditures when computing the “net burden on U.S. households.”

For an analogy, consider the debate over health care reform. [Read more →]