Cheaters Never Win

. . . in the ideal world, but in the real world they do tend to. One problem with proposals to regulate emissions is the question of how to deal with cheating - countries that don't observe emissions limits. Our ingenious climate scholar, Prof. Eli Rabett has an answer:

Nations wishing to make major progress on decreasing greenhouse gas emissions should introduce emission taxes on all products. These taxes should be levied on imports as well as domestic goods at the point of sale, and should displace other taxes, such as VAT, sales taxes, and payroll (e.g. social security, health care) in such a way that tax revenues are constant, and distributed equitably.

Pretty clearly, this can only work if most of the major consumer nations sign on. I doubt that it could really work without the US, but it might. I would be interested if economists (or anybody) could find any flaws in this idea?

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