I must be getting older. I now am interested in the articles printed in alumni magazines. Below, I report a piece by UC Berkeley's Dean of the College of Environmental Design. His Berkeley Team attempts to "green" China's urban development.
In Chapter 4 of my new Green Cities book, I discuss at length the environmental benefits of de-industrialization. The New York Times offers a nice case study today.
I showed up to work today and actually received two interesting letters. One was from Robert Axelrod and the other was from Ken Arrow. Professor Axelrod is a University Professor at the University of Michigan. I have never met him. I am a recipient of a mass mailing inviting me to China.
I have just returned from a great environmental economics conference in Vail, Colorado. A foot of snow was dumped on me but that couldn't stop me. At this conference, we discussed many environmental issues.
At Tufts, we started our seminar series yesterday. Gib Metcalf gave a fascinating talk on explaining state/year trends in U.S energy intensity. The ratio = (energy consumption/real GNP) has been declining from 1970 to the present with the OPEC price shocks.
There are too many economists writing papers about speed dating.
Harvard is always in the news. Today, its scholars have calculated life expectancy (measured in years) by state. Clearly, Bill Clinton didn't do enough good deeds for Arkansas and we should all move to Utah. I'm not sure if this is an "apples to apples" comparison.
The article I report below from the University of Chicago Alumni Magazine highlights why this university has achieved such prominence. The University of Chicago wanted to understand how its heterogeneous students demand library services. The library bundles multiple activities.
I now own 100 copies of my new puke green colored book; "Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment." If you are interested in environmental and urban issues, you might want to read this piece of work! Here are some details.
Does the typical person in the United States have a private incentive to root for new costly public policies to preempt climate change? Adam Smith taught us to focus on self interest as a motivator.
As professors age, do we get less excited about the start of the new school year? I hope not. I do think that I get used to having few responsibilities each summer and it is always a little bit shocking to have to do other tasks besides for research and reading.
Like many economists, I'm a fan of competition. As a new book author, I am well aware that my new book faces competition from many other books.
I am in strange situation. At Tufts, classes have not started yet. The Brookings Press has told me that my book has been published and that they have seen it and it "looks great". So, I feel like a guy who knows that he is a father but hasn't met his own kid.
At lunch at a Lincoln Land Institute conference in May, Bill Fischel said something quite interesting about the economics of mistakes in the presence of uncertainty. He argued that if you know that you are making a risky choice try to make the same choice as everybody else.
