Environmental and Urban Economics

I should send Ed Mills two copies of the 2008 Chinese Translation of my Green Cities book. Maybe he would like this one more than the original english version? I still like my book a lot. My co-author Siqi Zheng helped make this translation happen. I'm grateful to her for her help.

If you bothered reading my last blog entry, I wanted to expand it a little. As you might remember, I briefly listed what I think are the 6 biggest issues in environmental economics. I would encourage all young environmental scholars to be working on these topics!

Let me return to endogenous technological innovation.

I have returned from 4 days and nights at the NBER Summer Institute. The highlights included Marty Weitzman's talk on "fat tails" at the Environmental Meetings and the dinner celebrating Marty Feldstein's major contributions as President of the NBER for the last 30 years. It does amaze me that Dr. Feldstein took over the bureau at the age of 38. If you want to see this year's conference program go to www.nber.org/~confer.

There were over 100 people attending the environmental meetings.

It's Our Earth, Now What Do We Do With It?

By EDWARD GLAESER, Special to the Sun | July 18, 2008

http://www.nysun.com/arts/its-our-earth-now-what-do-we-do-with-it/82183/

Political movements are often built on literary foundations. Abolitionism owed much to "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Progressivism had Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell. Books, fiction or not, have the power to convince us impressionable readers that we face dire threats, such as unclean meat or pesticides.

Seasonality is a boring word. Many environmentalists are now talking about it saying that in a world of high energy prices that trucking berries and other fruits from distant farmers to urban consumers will rise in price and that these urban consumers will respond by eating a more seasonal diet. High energy prices will encourage eating "locally".

This New York Times article turns this logic around. In a nutshell, it argues that South Florida used to be a seasonal place.

While I won't win a Clark Medal and the monthly IDEAS email tells me that I have barely cracked the top 5% of academic economists, I have now achieved something that I'm proud of. How many Chicago Economists can say that their work is profiled on the front page of the City of Berkeley's Webpage? I'm waiting for Becker, Glaeser, and Heckman to join me there in the rare air.

I've always wondered what the price of gasoline would have to be for Harvard to start drilling in Harvard Square. Now, I'm not a geologist and I don't play one on TV but there could be some oil deposits under that Burger joint. More seriously, when do high commodity prices lead to radical changes in land use patterns?

Fun Blog Reading from The Economist . The full draft of the Glaeser/Kahn paper should be released as NBER Working Paper in a couple of weeks.

Housing will soon be a pinch more affordable around the country. For reasons perhaps related to humidity and housing supply regulation, Houston is an affordable city for the middle class seeking out the American Dream. In this editorial, Ed Glaeser contrasts New York City and Houston. If I'm reading this article correctly, it appears that Rice University should make Ed an offer.

I was just walking my son to school within .25 miles of UCLA and a tall woman with a friendly dog walked past us. Upon second glance, I convinced myself that it was tennis great Venus Williams . She is taller than I am and appears to be in better shape.

While the Arts Section of the New York Times rarely interests me, this piece is worth reading.

In a nutshell, when wealthy people go on cruise ship vacations they over-bid for art in auctions held on the ship.

Exciting things are taking place at the UCLA Institute of the Environment. If the existence of a webpage is any sign, we now have an active New Research Center at UCLA focused on Corporate Environmentalism . What will this research center actually do?

Suppose that you work at a company located somewhere in Southern California (i.e metro Los Angeles).