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In his recent article on the reasoning behind interdisciplinary political science, Michael Moran examines both external factors (such as funding), as well as internal motives (the desire to keep a discipline alive). He does not acknowledge, however, that political science is in fact likely to be a poor candidate for interdisciplinary work. In this article, I outline three reasons – training, career advancement and the self-regulation of the profession – why political science has not adopted an interdisciplinary direction.

The new carbon levy of $30 per tonne, announced in November 2015 as part of the report issued by the Alberta government's Climate Leadership Panel, is a positive move in the direction of pricing carbon emissions. The levy is expected to generate $3 billion in net revenue by 2018, and possibly as much as $5 billion by 2030. While there is some discussion in the report of what should be done with the revenues generated by the carbon levy, it is somewhat vague on the details, leaving a number of options open to the government. The purpose of this briefing paper is to argue that the revenues from the carbon levy should be used to lower existing taxes – the carbon tax should be revenue neutral, generating no new net revenue for the government. The basic argument is that the carbon levy can be viewed through two lenses. The first lens is the imposition of a price on carbon emissions which (at least partly) reflects the social costs of emissions. Viewed through this price lens, the carbon levy plays an important role in incenting firms and individuals to change their behaviour and move towards less carbon intensive activities. The second lens is the role of a carbon tax as a part of the broad revenue system. Viewed through this tax lens, a carbon tax is not a very good, or efficient, way of generating revenue. The reason for this is somewhat nuanced, but the basic idea is that the carbon tax is applied to a narrower base than broader-based taxes. Broad based taxes generally impose lower costs on the economy than narrow based taxes. Moreover, carbon taxes interact with other taxes in the economy, exacerbating the economic costs associated with those taxes. And those costs are quite high – research shows that the total cost to the economy of raising an additional $1 in revenue through the corporate income tax in Alberta is $3.79; for the personal income tax the cost is $1.71. These taxes therefore impose higher costs on the economy than they raise in revenue. Swapping revenue from the carbon levy for these taxes in a revenue neutral manner would lower these costs, generating a substantial return to the provincial economy relative to other uses. If the government wants to fund other priority areas – be it public infrastructure, investment in complementary initiatives to reduce emissions, or even deficit reduction – it is better to finance these initiatives through more efficient and less costly taxes than a carbon tax. The basic approach advocated here is as follows: price emissions appropriately by way of a carbon levy, use the revenue to reduce existing taxes in a revenue-neutral manner, evaluate the benefits of spending money on other initiatives, and finance those initiatives using the least costly configuration of taxes possible (subject to equity considerations).

Innovation is critical in the knowledge-based economy. It is generally accepted that governments have an important role to play in promoting innovative activity and R&D. Both the federal and provincial governments in Canada provide tax subsidies, and other forms of support, for R&D. Changes to various programs offered by the federal government were introduced in Budget 2012, most particularly related to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit program. This paper analyzes the state of tax subsidies for R&D both pre- and post-budget, and at both the federal and provincial level. It is shown that there is a patchwork of effective tax subsidy rates in Canada, which vary both between and within provinces, between small versus large firms, and across sectors and types of R&D activity. The result is a misallocation of R&D resources and a system of government support that is less effective than it could be. On some dimensions Budget 2012 was a move in the right direction, but on other dimensions matters were made worse, resulting in a reconfiguration of tax support across R&D activities that is more distortionary and less efficient. Most particularly, the post-budget tax system heavily favours small firms over large firms, and labour intensive R&D over capital intensive R&D. This paper offers a lucid examination of R&D tax support pre- and post-budget, and argues persuasively that Canadian governments should adopt a more uniform, less distortionary approach to tax subsidies for R&D if they are truly interested in setting innovation free.

The Alberta government's 2009 New Royalty Framework elicited resistance on the part of the energy industry, leading to subsequent reductions in the royalties imposed on natural gas and conventional oil. However, the oil sands sector, subject to different terms, quickly accepted the new arrangement with little complaint, recognizing it as win-win situation for industry and the government. Under the framework, Alberta recoups much more money in royalties — about $1 billion over the two year period of 2009 and 2010 — without impinging significantly on investment in the oil sands. This brief paper demonstrates that by spreading the financial risks and benefits to everyone involved, the new framework proves it's possible to generate increased revenue without frightening off future investment. The same model could conceivably be applied to the conventional oil and natural gas sectors.