Environmental and Urban Economics

Academics write at a leisurely pace. Perhaps an upcoming NBER Summer Institute deadline or a January AEA Session date makes you pick up the pace to actually meet a deadline. In March 2008, Ed Glaeser and I released this report where we used a variety of data sets to measure a standardized household's greenhouse gas emission if this household lived in 66 major metropolitan areas (i.e Houston, Los Angeles, Boston etc). The Glaeser/Kahn Short Report on the Urban Greenhouse Gas Footprint

We continue to refine our approach and will pretty soon release our academic paper as an NBER Working Paper. This paper uses 10 different data sets to generate our estimates.

I don't believe in "lock in" effects. Looking back to August 2005 when this fascinating blog started, I chose the bland titled of "environmental and urban economics" because that was an accurate description of what I was working on. I continue to work on these topics but at the same time I'm also doing other stuff. I'm Chairing a search to find a new Director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment.

Academic economists often marry academic economists. Why? Well, I can't answer that but permit me to offer one salient data point. A 1998 Event that you weren't invited to .

As I think back over the 10 years that have flown by, I wondered whether it is rare for a couple to reach this milestone. The quant guy in me turned to the The Marriage Duration Calculator . Its output reveals that given my "observables" the probability that our marriage would last this long is 89%.

Most shareholders purchase a company's stock in order to raise their rate of return (adjusted for risk). The Rockefeller shareholders may have a more complex objective function. In addition to the usual risk/return criteria, this article below highlights that 73 of the 77 Rockefellers seek that Exxon-Mobil actively engage climate change mitigation and invest in renewables.

Chicken and Egg issues are at the heart of what economists are supposed to be doing. Do you have a clever instrument? Is "clever" a nice word? Andrew Rose and Mark Spiegel ask an interesting question in their new NBER paper titled: "NON-ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT AND INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE: THE CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES". They ask; "when nations work together on international environmental issues does this facilitate economic interaction?". To my naive eye, this is a hard question.

I thank Jan Mazurek for sending me this "heads up" on new proposed Senate legislation. Will the Senate simultaneously pass this bill and offer a gas tax holiday? Net Zero?

As urban crime falls, as the Baby Boomers get older, as household size shrinks --- these forces all encourage people to live at higher density BUT what about firms? Google's campus is not located in a center city. They have a cute little building in Santa Monica but I doubt that 5,000 people work there.

Ed Glaeser and I have a new paper where we assume that the social marginal cost of an extra ton of carbon dioxide emissions equals $43. With this number in mind, it is funny that the progressive green city of San Francisco is applauding itself for implementing a $.04 tax per ton of carbon dioxide. Now, I know that in this world of behavioral economics 4 cents is "far" from zero but $43 is far from $.04!

Dan Kamen celebrates this first step.

Economists like gossip. I don't know why. Don't we have better things to do? Aren't the stakes pretty low? We all have good jobs. We all are well fed. Stop complaining and get back to work. But, before you do so think of the rising UCLA's Economics Department. While this article below provides only 1 paragraph on our recent success (and doesn't provide details about the successful senior recruiting by UCLA's Public Policy School and the Anderson School), the punchline cannot be denied.

Forget Peak Oil, this book review below argues that we are on the verge of Peak Chicken, Peak Tuna and Peak Prunes. Perhaps, in that state of the world you will substitute to double stuff oreos? I know that only nerds read the New Yorker but now that I've moved away from New York City --- I like this magazine. My son likes its cartoons. Bee Wilson blames fat Westerners who like to eat too much and the governments that subsidize our farmers.

I have taken a week off from blogging as I traveled to the World Bank, the National Science Foundation and Moshe Buchinsky's great summer home near Big Bear Lake 100 miles East of LA. Now, I'm back and I have things to say. Yesterday's NYT Book Review included a review of Jeff Sachs' new book (see below). How should a guy such as Jeff Sachs allocate his scarce time? We know that Dr. Krugman has reallocated his time away from the peer review process.