From the article:
Economists are inclined to frown on
the strategy of dumping giant piles
of government money onto budding
technologies that are in need of
scaling up. They prefer market
mechanisms, tech-neutral incentives,
and nudges that maximize the free
choices of market participants. In
any economic model, such policies
will perform better.
And that’s well and good. But
sometimes problems are big and
urgent, you need scaled-up solutions
quickly, and you just don’t have
time to mess around.
I think the author is fighting a strawman here and not giving those
economists enough credit. What China's with solar panels and electric
buses has been narrow and centrally planned, they wanted to solve
those problems in particular.
Whereas the argument on the other side is that you should be equally
aggressive with something like a carbon or pollution tax, because then
you start solving the same problem in parallel across the entire
economy instead of just in some specific sectors.
What China's been doing right is having the political will do actually
spend money on the problem, as opposed to most of the west. But that
doesn't mean their method of doing so is optimal, if we were similarly
willing to turn the screws on via carbon or pollution tax I think we
could make more gains than they're making.
Whereas the argument on the other side is that you should be equally aggressive with something like a carbon or pollution tax, because then you start solving the same problem in parallel across the entire economy instead of just in some specific sectors.
What China's been doing right is having the political will do actually spend money on the problem, as opposed to most of the west. But that doesn't mean their method of doing so is optimal, if we were similarly willing to turn the screws on via carbon or pollution tax I think we could make more gains than they're making.