"Flash Boys," the new book by Michael Lewis charging that high-frequency trading rigs the stock market, has triggered calls by some financial experts for a tax on financial trades.

"It [such a tax] kills three birds with one stone," Lynn Stout, a professor at Cornell Law School, told The New York Times. "From a public policy perspective, it’s a no-brainer."

First, such a tax would curb volatility in the stock market, she said. Second, it would increase government revenue, helping to shrink the budget deficit. And third, it would slightly increase the cost of an activity that does little to help the economy, Stout said.

Editor's Note: 18.79% Annual Returns ... for Life?

Some advocate a 0.3 percent tax on each trade, which means a $10,000 trade would carry a $3 tax. Given the amount of trading in the market, that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years, according to The Times.

And some experts say it would limit high-frequency trading. "It eliminates the incentive to engage in this form of extremely short-term trading," Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Times.

To be sure, not everyone believes high-frequency trading causes harm. Lewis' book isn't convincing on that score, says bank analyst Dick Bove of Rafferty Capital Markets.

"One must prove that stock prices are being fundamentally altered by the new practices in a fashion that now makes it impossible for them to reflect true value of the companies that they represent," he writes on CNBC.com.

"The book does not make this claim. In fact, it hints at the possibility that HFT [high-frequency] traders provide liquidity which facilitates purer valuations."

Editor's Note: 18.79% Annual Returns ... for Life?

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