Editor note: Professor Dolan kindly submitted this rebuttal to Robert Bradley’s post yesterday, “Hayek was not a Malthusian or Global Tariff Advocate (link to a carbon tax peculiar, errant).” Bradley’s post, in turn, was a critique of Dolan’s original piece, “Friedrich Hayek on Carbon Taxes.”
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I am happy to comment on the validity of the nine points you raise regarding Hayek and a carbon tax.
I agree with what you say about Hayek’s attitude toward the Keynesian consensus. However, my reading is that he distinguished between social sciences and natural sciences, and between the ability of people to offer informed judgement on fields in which they have specific expert training compared with fields in which they do not have such training.…
Continue Reading“Professor Dolan is invited to study the Hayek literature to see if any of the above nine points are not valid. The burden of proof is on him to try to square a classical liberal with disputed externality pricing, ‘tax-bads’ public finance, international tariffs, equity tax-dividend adjustments, and government planning.”
Yale economics PhD Ed Dolan recently attempted to link the classical liberal scholar F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) to a carbon tax in a piece published by the (misnamed) Niskanen Center. [1]
“Friedrich Hayek on Carbon Taxes” is more than unconvincing. It is shoddy. It fails to make its point and (purposefully?) neglects the obvious themes of Hayekian economics and political economy for a generic issue such as climate change.
Professor Dolan begins by admitting that Hayek never wrote anything on the subject.…
Continue Reading“People buying EVs that cost $100,000 aren’t concerned about the cost of adding charging stations to their homes, but people in the market for EVs costing $35,000 may find the additional cost burdensome.”
A major public-policy issue is government subsidization of battery-powered or electric vehicles (EVs). But putting this aside, or given the existing situation, what are the practical issues of EVs for the home and, hypothetically, for wide implementation?
The two major issues are:
Power Plant Capacity
The first question has been answered, in general terms, as yes, unless there is a large number of battery-powered vehicles (BEVs) concentrated in a specific geographic area.…
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