The New York Times on wednesday had a great article on Russia's newest export to the West --- carbon credits. There is clear evidence that there are gains to trade between Russia's electric utilities and Western nations.
I was taught that good social science explains and predicts human behavior. I figure that this time of year we bloggers are expected to make some predictions for the next year.
It appears to me that the NYC public transit union has lost this strike.
After interviewing an embedded reporter (my father) about how New York City’s Public Transit Strike has affected this city's quality of life, I would like to ask some questions and make a few observations.
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A couple of years ago I published a paper in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management titled "Demographic Change and the Demand for Environmental Regulation". I was interested in what observable attributes of a person such as his education level predict environmentalism.
When he lives in Berkeley CA, my son drinks organic milk made by the Strauss Family Creamery. Until I looked at the bottle, I didn't appreciate how green a product this stuff is. Ecological economists should be impressed by the "closed loop" nature of this firm's production process.
Will a public transit strike in NYC cripple this town? Perhaps Newman from Seinfeld will offer commuters rides on his rikshaw? How would this City adjust to this surprise?
Relative to their next best employment opportunities, public transit workers seem to have a pretty good deal; namely elatively
Relative to their next best employment opportunities, public transit workers seem to have a pretty good deal; namely elatively
Apparently there are investors who care about more than risk and return. Such investors intentionally constrain their asset choice set avoiding companies who pollute or do other evils.
Time consistency is an important idea in dynamics economics. The 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics was partially awarded for macro research on this topic
( see http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2004/ecoadv.pdf).
( see http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2004/ecoadv.pdf).
For a big company such as DuPont, is a $17 million dollar environmental fine serious? Is such a company more concerned about the public relations issue that the media may cover the story because the fine is viewed as "big"? From the EPA's perspective does it seek out high profile polluters and try t
When can shame and ostracism be harnessed to achieve social goals? Environmentalists argue that such public information as the Toxic Release Inventory create a "Day of Shame" such that manufacturers take steps to avoid being called "The Top Polluter" in news media accounts.
A recent NBER Working Paper conducted an extensive Census Based analysis of how home prices change in a vacinity of recently cleaned up Superfund sites. The study nicely constructed a credible control group (see http://www.nber.org/papers/w11790).
As cities in the South West such as Las Vegas and Phoenix grow, water demand increases.
In the 2008 Presidential Campaign, will the Democratic Party's nominee run as an international "team player"? Will the typical U.S voter be looking for a candidate who wants to build coalitions to conquer global challenges? I thought that Tip O'Neil said that all politics is local.
Over 25 billion dollars were spent between 1970 and 2000 in sixteen major cities in the United States on the construction of new rail transit lines. Billions more have been spent on maintaining and improving existing rail transit lines.
Which U.S cities have a rising share of workers commuting using public transit? Consider Philadelphia. In 1970, 23% of workers in this city commuted using public transit but by the year 2000 this share has fallen to 11%.
Nathaniel Baum-Snow of Brown University wrote an excellent PHD thesis at the University of Chicago. Using data from the United States, he documents that highways have played an important role in contributing to U.S suburbanization.
Dora Costa and I have now written six different empirical papers on social capital. All of them are available here (http://web.mit.edu/costa/www/papers.html). We are now starting to write a book that will bring all of these ideas together.
The Oil Drum (www.theoildrum.com) is an intriguing blog site featuring an active community debating peak oil's causes and consequences. As an empiricist, I was interested in what is the correlation between the price of gasoline and the web traffic that this site generates.
Suppose that terrorists choose targets by maximizing their expected utility. Suppose these guys have rational expectations.
