Environmental and Urban Economics

Here is a nice case study in the New York Times telling the story of how one maple syrup "farmer" converted his production process such that his energy source is now french fry grease. This isn't a complete "free market environmentalism" tale because he did get a grant from the government to make the transition from fossil fuels to his new low greenhouse gas (but smelly) fuel. Still, this case study is suggestive concerning the possibility of accelerating efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through the diffusion of "green ideas". This guy is a "guinea pig" --- will his neighbors learn from his experiment and adopt his ways?

April 28, 2007

The Energy Challenge

It’s Maple Syrup Time, So Why the Whiff of French Fries?

By SAM HOOPER SAMUELS

WESTMINSTER, Vt.

Golfers gone wild. Let's see if this lady becomes rich selling her videos! As information technology declines in price, more citizens will be able to collect evidence such as these video tapes. Will this help to reduce crime as the police will have the evidence to win a conviction? Anticipating this outcome, potential criminals don't commit the crime?

It seems like these guys in this case really needed to go.

What is your theory for why more folks are talking about climate change as a "real"

issue than in the recent past? Is Al Gore a causal homogenous treatement effect? Or was this winter too warm relative to the recent past and this has convinced you that "things have changed"? Or, are your friends talking about it and you want to fit in with the gang? Or, have more people woken up and decided to be "good people" rather than "selfish" people and now think through the social consequences of their a

Earth Day is here. Where would a green "benevolent" planner seeking to enhance environmental sustainability place 300 million Americans? All in St. Louis? All in Santa Monica? Ed Glaeser is trying to start a policy discussion on the larger consequences of differential housing supply regulation. He partitions areas into those that are "pro-growth" and those that are "slow growth".

All Sheryl Crow wanted to do was have some fun --- do you feel pity for Karl Rove? This recounting of their "Lincoln-Douglas" debate is fun reading. If this version is correct, then I think that Ms. Crow won this round. Especially with Earth Day so close, one would think that a shrewd political analyst such as Dr. Rove would have the good sense to pretend that he cares about these issues.

I'm almost impressed with his bad boy front.

This article offers a case study of "new urbanists" benefiting from access to a

new rail transit line that allows them to ditch the auto lifestyle. How many people are interested in such a lifestyle? How costly per rider is this new transit option? How is this new rail line being financed? Is the Federal Government paying 80% of the costs?

A key issue here is where does the train go? Boston's Red Line goes through Harvard Square, MIT and on to downtown Boston.

Mike Bloomberg is an unusual Republican. Most politicians do not have such a long run perspective.

Perhaps professors are useful people. Mark Jacobson at Stanford appears to be

working on an interesting issue with public policy consequences. I haven't read

his real research paper (the link is at the bottom of this blog entry) but I plan

to. It will interest me to see how he handles the issue of heterogeneity. He seems

to be arguing that ethanol use will change the spatial distribution of air pollution-

so there are issues of general equilibrium responses to this new shock.

It is Hammer's time. Here is part of the intro from Dan Hamermesh's new paper titled "Replication in Economics" http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13026.pdf

1. Introduction—What Is Replication?

Economists treat replication the way teenagers treat chastity—as an ideal to be professed but not to be practiced. Why is this? How much replication is done by economic researchers? What are the incentives/disincentives to engage in replication exercises? These are positive questions.

Tom Friedman fumbled the ball in his long piece today in the NYT Magazine (see

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin). More Green leadership by U.S leaders would be welcome but he is not clear about the causality of how such a policy shift would have large effects on our international relations.

"Well, I want to rename “green.” I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic.