The Brookings Institution recently described a US carbon tax of $20 per ton, increasing at 4% per year, which would raise an estimated $150 billion per year in federal revenues over the next decade. Given the negative externalities created by carbon dioxide emissions, a federal carbon tax at this rate would involve fewer harmful net distortions to the US economy than a tax increase that generated the same revenue by raising marginal tax rates on labor income across the board.
Responses
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
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Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
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Participant |
University |
Vote |
Confidence |
Bio/Vote History |
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 Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
 Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Taxing negative externalities reduces economic distortions; taxing labor creates them. This is the tax equivalent of a free lunch!
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 Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Since carbon is a worldwide pollutant, leakage of production to other jurisdictions remains a concern.
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 Janet Currie |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Pollution is a negative externality. It is hard to argue the same for employment! If $150b per year isn't way too much tax, this is obvious.
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 Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Claudia Goldin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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but partly b/c statement intentionally doesn't consider distributional or implementation issues with carbon taxes.
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 Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The $20 tax is v close to U.S. government's estimate of the social cost of carbon of about $21 per ton. See links below for more details.
-see background information here -see background information here |
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 Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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There's reasonable evidence that carbon emissions raise the temp, but it is less clear that the net effects of warming are negative.
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 Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Edward Lazear |
Stanford | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Agree at a high level, but implementation of such a tax could create many new distortions and loopholes.
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 Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Maurice Obstfeld |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The likely outcome, though the answer depends on relevant elasticities.
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 Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Hyun Song Shin |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Nancy Stokey |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Great on effiency but not on progressivity so you have to get that right elsewhere.
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 Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The details matter, and CO2 reduction is a global public good, so this policy is not sufficient. But it's a step forward.
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 Luigi Zingales |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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