Environmental and Urban Economics

I serve on the board of editors of Regional Science and Urban Economics. Papers published in RSUE are usually quite good but they rarely make the national news. The Mankiw and Weil paper from long ago arguing that the aging of the baby boomers would lead to falling home prices was an exception. But perhaps, here is a new one by colleage Stuart Gabriel and our USC friends.

Who says that UCLA and USC are rivals? We are all working together to make LA great.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a1ua7J7AYpxM&refer=news

U.S. Growth Will Be Hurt More by Homes Than Stocks, Study Says

By Daniel Taub

Enlarge Image/Details

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Plunging home prices will cut economic growth in the U.S.

Will the current banking chaos reduce innovation in the green tech sector such as solar panels and hydrogen cars? Is there a new green technology that would have been developed sooner had the current financial crisis not taken place? Some in California are making claims that there are new startup firms with positive expected PDV of their investments but these firms face high fixed costs for entering the field and have no ability to borrow.

I spent the morning at the Beverly Hills Hotel attending the Milken Institute's "State of the State". (see http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/events.taf?function=detail&ID=230&eventid=SOS08&cat=sos)

In a big ballroom there were roughly 500 people listening to two panels; one on the real estate market and one on alternative energy.

Tomorrow I will attend the morning sessions of the Milken Institute's Big Annual Conference: California: The State of the State . Can professors sit quietly and learn? I doubt it.

Are you Against Intellectual Monopoly? UCLA has some new patents to offer to the world; New Intellectual Property from UCLA . It looks like the Economics Department is under-represented on the patent page.

I tried to do a google search on patents held by economists but I have failed. I used to hold a patent on OLS estimation but I didn't renew it.

This theme that Al Gore is a carbon hypocrite seems to work people up. Last year, people seized upon the facts that his big houses used a lot of electricity relative to Joe Plummer. Now they are talking about Big Al's love of bacon.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/02/gores_carbon_fo.html

"Last August (2006) alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.

Funny stuff, he should read Dan O'Flaherty's City Economics at least twice.

Confessions of a Radical White Gentrifier

By Andrew Lyubarsky

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/56396

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 23, 2008

On paper, it seems like I’ve done everything right. I attend regular protests on 125th Street, I can cite Huey P. Newton, and I recite compellingly how American urban policy has ravaged communities of color since the halcyon days of Robert Moses.

My parents have signed me up for the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. I guess that they believe that a tenured professor should be a well read intellectual. While I prefer to write rather than read, I do read these things and sometimes actually learn.

Bill McKibben is arguing that we don't have enough time for "green capitalism" to react and respond to avert the climate crisis. This raises the fascinating issue of how quickly capitalism does adapt.

This would be a great year to hire new faculty. Even the richest universities are feeling the pain. The wise Dean would use endowment income to hire this year. I know that the UCLA Deans are wise and will follow my advise. It appears that several leading schools are cutting back this year and some top new talent will land at universities a pinch down the food chain.

Faust Warns Faculty On Finance

Published On 10/22/2008 12:43:05 AM

By MAXWELL L. CHILD and CHRISTIAN B.