IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/acb/agenda/v19y2012i2p9-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modelling as Agit-prop: The Treasury's Role in Australia's Carbon Tax Debate

Author

Listed:
  • Henry Ergas
  • Alex Robson

Abstract

This paper examines the modelling undertaken by the Commonwealth Treasury of the costs of an Australian emissions trading scheme, published in 'Strong Growth, Low Pollution'. Despite its considerable technical sophistication, we argue that this modelling is primarily an exercise in propaganda: 'the systematic dissemination of selected information to promote a particular doctrine' (Oxford English Dictionary). That propaganda role determined the limited range of questions asked in the modelling, the myriad unrealistic assumptions made in answering those questions, and the limitations imposed on third-party access to the model and data.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry Ergas & Alex Robson, 2012. "Modelling as Agit-prop: The Treasury's Role in Australia's Carbon Tax Debate," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 9-22.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:19:y:2012:i:2:p:9-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p208901/pdf/ch026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. José A. Rodrigues-Neto, 2008. "Climate Change Policy: A Theorist’s Plea to Take Heed of Game Theory and Ambiguity Aversion," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 15(2), pages 85-92.
    2. Alex Robson, 2007. "The Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading: A Solution in Search of a Problem," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 14(3), pages 19-26.
    3. Skaperdas, Stergios & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 1996. "Can the shadow of the future harm cooperation?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 355-372, May.
    4. Henry Ergas, 2012. "Policy Forum: Designing a Carbon Price Policy: Using Market‐Based Mechanisms for Emission Abatement: Are the Assumptions Plausible?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 45(1), pages 86-95, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alex Robson, 2014. "Australia's Carbon Tax: An Economic Evaluation," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 35-45, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    2. Beviá, Carmen & Corchón, Luis C., 2013. "Endogenous strength in conflicts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 297-306.
    3. Mehlum, Halvor & Moene, Kalle, 2008. "King of the Hill Positional Dynamics in Contests," MPRA Paper 8084, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Lacomba, Juan A. & Lagos, Francisco & Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2017. "Decisiveness, peace, and inequality in games of conflict," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 216-229.
    5. Raul Caruso, 2008. "Reciprocity in the shadow of threat," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 55(1), pages 91-111, April.
    6. Michelle R. Garfinkel & Constantinos Syropoulos, 2019. "On Trade and the Stability of (Armed) Peace," Working Papers 181910, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    7. Michelle R. Garfinkel & Stergios Skaperdas, 2000. "Contract or War? On the Consequences of a Broader View of Self-Interest in Economics," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 44(1), pages 5-16, March.
    8. Stephen Iles & Gary Johns, 2010. "An Economic Unravelling of the Precautionary Principle: The Queensland Wild Rivers Act 2005," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 73-94.
    9. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    10. Caruso Raul, 2006. "Conflict and Conflict Management with Interdependent Instruments and Asymmetric Stakes, (The Good-Cop and the Bad-Cop Game)," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-53, September.
    11. repec:cte:werepe:we1114 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Damien S Eldridge, 2008. "Sharing the greenhouse: Inducing cooperation in a global common," Working Papers 2008.07, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    13. Michelle R. Garfinkel & Stergios Skaperdas, 2000. "Conflict without Misperceptions or Incomplete Information," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 44(6), pages 793-807, December.
    14. Herschel I. Grossman, 2003. "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!," NBER Working Papers 9635, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Garfinkel, M.R. & Skaperdas, S., 2000. "Conflict without Misperceptions or Incomplete Information: how the Future Matters," Papers 99-00-11, California Irvine - School of Social Sciences.
    16. Stergios Skaperdas, 2008. "An economic approach to analyzing civil wars," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 25-44, January.
    17. Rafael Reuveny & John W. Maxwell, 2001. "Conflict and Renewable Resources," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(6), pages 719-742, December.
    18. Stergios Skaperdas & Constantinos Syropoulos, 2002. "Insecure Property and the Efficiency of Exchange," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 133-146, January.
    19. Chu, Angus C. & Peretto, Pietro F. & Furukawa, Yuichi, 2024. "Political fragmentation versus a unified empire in a Malthusian economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 284-293.
    20. Kjell Hausken, 2007. "Stubbornness, Power, and Equilibrium Selection in Repeated Games with Multiple Equilibria," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 135-160, March.
    21. Gonzalez, Francisco M., 2007. "Effective property rights, conflict and growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 127-139, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:19:y:2012:i:2:p:9-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.