PUBPOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Paternalism, Choice Architecture, Carbon Tax
Document Summary
Share responsibility: take advantage of diversity and difference. Represent your views: don"t over generalize, speak for yourself. What"s broken: provide data on the size and shape of the problem, look at prominent policy options. How do we find this out: need good measurement. Measure the effects of possible policy choices: create a model of how humans respond. You can change policy, but you cannot change the course of human behavior. Must understand how things work in order to make progress: feature of all policies: there will always be winners and losers. If society is better off in the long run, the policy is effective. Agriculture is being affected: this is good in some places and bad in others. Increases in carbon and other gases cause the earth to heat it up. Therefore, we want the policy to reduce carbon. Cap and trade: companies receive permits to produce carbon and can sell excess permits.
