Praise for California
Many economists believe that Cambridge, MA is the center of the universe. I have lived there or within 2 miles of there for 8 years of my post-PHD life. I have a pretty good sense of the intellectual benefits of being located in the 02138 zip code.
Pick Your Poison: "Oil Dependence" or Ambient Particulates
Apparently, there is no free lunch? In the New York suburbs, people are investing in wood fired boilers to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, these wood heating sources create plenty of particulates and a huge public health literature has documented that particulates kill.
Metro Areas Morphing into CMSAs: Implications for Local Labor Markets
Bill Testa has a very interesting blog entry on the implicit "merger" of Chicago and Milwaukee into one big "super-metropolitan area" (see
http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2006/12/a_chicagomilwau_1.html)
We see this in many settings.
Moving West: A Tufts to UCLA Transition
Does a blog's content depend on where a person lives and works? If so, then this blog is about to change. On saturday, I move west; way west. We'll see if the absence of cold winter, Boston accents and the New England Patriots improves this blog.
MAYOR BLOOMBERG DELIVERS SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES AND GOALS FOR NEW YORK CITY THROUGH 2030
Now this is a forward looking Mayor! A cynic might ask why a mayor who can't run for re-election again would care about the environmental health of New York City 24 years from now in the year 2030. A moral philospher might state that the mayor is altruistic and cares about future generations.
Harvard Debates the Benefits of the Legacy Admissions Edge
This editorial presented below does a pretty good job of discussing the benefits of the status quo and thinking through who is the "marginal" student who was denied their place in the Harvard undergraduate class. I can't say that I have a big stake in this fight.
To Conserve on Natural Resource Consumption: Expected Prices Must be Positive!
Could computers and data bases be the key to reducing a city's ecological footprint? This Times article provides details about the inability of New York City's government to have a record keeping system to keep straight who is using how much water.
Ed Glaeser says "Charge for Congestion"
Boston Globe
MASS. APPEALS | ADVICE FOR THE NEW GOVERNOR | EDWARD L. GLAESER
Free roads are anything but free
By Edward L. Glaeser | December 11, 2006
THE DEBATE over removing tolls on the Western Turnpike shows this state at its worst.
Reducing Big City Traffic Congestion: Lessons from London
Incentives seem to matter in many settings. Jonathan Leape of the LSE has written a very nice paper on the London Congestion Charge for the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
When Bioterrorism was no big deal
Patricia Beeson and Werner Troesken provide some historical perspective on our post 9/11/2001 world by looking at how cities coped in the past with crisis.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12636
When Bioterrorism Was No Big Deal
Patricia E. Beeson, Werner Troesken
NBER Working Paper No.
Urban Tourism by Demographic Group
The growth of the black middle class has created niche markets. Many cities are competing to attract minority households to spend their vacations there. This article highlights the scale externality effect that Joel Waldfogel has written about.
Do Rats Threaten New York City's Quality of Life?
Forget crime, pollution, congestion or bad public schools, this article claims that rats represent NYC's biggest quality of life nemisis. If garbage could be disposed of in an orderly fashion, then rats would have less to eat.
The article engages in some empirical trends analysis.
Do Immigrants Make Cities Safer?
Today's New York Times Magazine posed an interesting question asking whether immigration surges help to reduce urban crime. The "conventional wisdom" is that immigrant enclaves feature gangs and illegal residents who contribute to urban mean streets. This article argues the opposite.
