Environmental and Urban Economics

The article below tells an interesting story about option value in real estate. In Las Vegas, developers sell condos in buildings that do not exist yet. In the story told below, as construction costs have increased by 30% in Las Vegas, developers have been canceling projects and returning the condo deposits back to potential buyers.

The article does not explain why construction costs have increased so much so quickly. It can't be the price of land. What has happened in the local labor market?

Are there new housing regulations that must be met that have raised costs?

The article hints at an interesting behavioral economics issue.

Highways are durable goods. Many highways were built in the 1950s. Out near denver the amount of driving has soared since then and now the roads are clogged. This article below provides details about a public policy fight over whether road expansion is "good public policy". The article does not mention road pricing as a means of solving congestion problems. The article slightly naively keeps talking about mass transit investments as a means of getting people off of the roads.

Do economists get enough popular media attention? I'm not talking about Sachs, Barro, Stiglitz, Krugman or Summers. These guys generate buzz. But, there are many economists, especially at the University of Chicago, who somehow don't get their share. Perhaps the unintended consequence of this "injustice" is that these tough guys work harder and churn out better stuff.

The New York Times Magazine has written profiles of Steve Levitt, Roland Fryer and Larry Summers in recent years.

Yale's ESI index is a useful tool for starting a discussion about how we measure environmental sustainability (http://www.yale.edu/esi/). Are environmental problems getting better or worse? Environmentalists fear policy complacency and in addition they have genuine concerns about the impacts of climate change, deforestation, and the rise of the automobile around the world.

The new environmental sustainability index (ESI) has been put out by yale and columbia researchers. The U.S is ranked 28th out of 133 nations. This article below is missing a key fact. One key component of this ESI index is carbon dioxide production per-capita. Excluding this category, what is the U.S ESI rating? This article does not report the index weights used but I'm guessing that the U.S would be a top 5 nation if you downweight this category.

The Mayor of New York City is a very rich man. Paul Allen is shadow governing Seattle. He is also a very rich Microsoft man. Would there be less corruption and better urban governance if every serious city were run by the super rich? The logic might be that these folks have satisfied their own taste for material goods and will not steal from the public and instead will focus on being a "kind king".

As climate change takes place, some nations will be better able to cope and adapt than others. This article below tells a sad story about how cow herders in Kenya are migrating far in search of rainy areas so that their cows can eat some grass. The problem is that these cows are entering wildlife parks competing with endangered species for food and perhaps grossing out the western eco-tourists.

Recently urban economists such as Ed Glaeser and Joe Gyourko have been examining the intended and unintended consequences of zoning and other land use controls. In a recent blog entry, I talked about the consumer price index for "healthy foods" such as fruit and veggies in the inner-city.

The rise of Wi-Fi networks in cities would appear to be a classic free rider issue.

The only thing missing in this article below is a celebrity such as Meryl Streep worrying that these things cause cancer. I would hope that the local phone company would attempt to sabotage these networks to continue to collect money on local modem dialups.

It is an interesting case study of whether public goods can be provided without government.

Superstores have only slowly entered major cities. A number of economists are now hard at work documenting the consumer surplus gains when Walmart enters a local market. There are interesting political economy questions of why major cities have been slow to rezone areas to allow superstores to enter. Clearly smaller incumbent firms will lose out if these lower cost firms enter.