About
- Professor of Economics
- Vice President of the Center for Economic Policy Research
- Senior Policy Fellow of the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, Center for Business and Public Policy
- Associate Editor of VoxEU
Voting History
Question A: US regulation of greenhouse gases – including carbon dioxide from motor vehicles and power plants, and methane from oil and gas wells – rests on the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced its rescission of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards: https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-rescission-greenhouse-gas-endangerment. The President of the National Academy of Sciences subsequently wrote to the organization's members, noting that 'the EPA justified its decision on legal, economic, and regulatory opinions, and not on the science’.
The weight of economic analysis and evidence supports the conclusion that some form of regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is warranted.
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Question B: For US consumers and firms, the health and environmental benefits of greenhouse gas emission standards outweigh the costs, making the EPA rescission substantially net negative for American society.
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Question C: Since the environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions are globally distributed, some form of collective international regulation is warranted.
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Question A: Without a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), Europe risks a further loss of control over its monetary system to foreign payment service providers, including US Big Tech platforms and US stablecoin issuers.
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Comment: There is no need for retail CBDC. In fact retail CBDC without alternative payment rails will do nothing about sovereignty. What is needed is strong independence in payments.
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Question B: Without a credible, modern wholesale settlement solution in central bank money - whether via a wholesale CBDC or equivalent infrastructure - Europe risks a further erosion of payments autonomy.
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Comment: But the system needs to address the weakness and dependence in payment systems. That is the key part where non-European companies have a strong control.
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Question A: The US intervention in Venezuela will have no measurable impact on the world oil price over the next 12 months.
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Question B: The US intervention will lead to a substantial increase in the profitability of US energy companies over the next five years.
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Question C: The US intervention will lead to a substantial increase in economic growth in Venezuela over the next five years.
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Question A: The potential for consumer privacy to be compromised by digital platforms’ use of personal data is sufficient to justify regulations that assign consumers some kind of default control rights over their data.
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Question B: To date, EU efforts to regulate use of personal data - primarily the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR - have been largely ineffective at protecting consumers.
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Question C: To date, EU efforts to regulate use of personal data - primarily GDPR - have imposed substantial costs on European businesses, slowing innovation and growth.
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Question A: Adoption of artificial intelligence will lead to a substantial increase in the growth rates of real per capita income in the US and Western Europe over the next ten years.
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Comment: The word substantial is key here. I think growth is likely to be higher but by an amount which is not that large.
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Question B: Adoption of artificial intelligence will lead to a substantial increase in the unemployment rates in the US and Western Europe over the next ten years.
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Question A: For reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, subsidies for R&D on low-carbon technologies are justified in addition to carbon pricing mechanisms like carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems.
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Question B: Higher subsidies for R&D on low-carbon technologies are justified by the fact that their successful deployment would not only reduce emissions in OECD countries but also reduce developing countries' emissions by encouraging them to substitute away from fossil fuels.
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