Several sets of economists have written papers on the unintended consequences of the Endangered Species Act . These papers document that land owners crush the "natural capital" before the Act seizes (without compensation) their land.
Around UCLA, there are some very successful people living and working nearby. Some are connected to the "Hollywood" industry. Rick Byrd is one of them. He has played a key role on Alter Eco on TV with his buddy Adrian Grenier. On Wednesday, Rick gave a talk at UCLA.
Obama is hiring but other demanders of academic economists' efforts are substituting to some other input.
Do recessions have a "chilling" effect on reallocating resources towards more productive sectors of the economy? Or because the opportunity cost is low, recessions are the exact right time for key reallocations? This has been a topic of esoteric macro (see http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/138) but now
California is the green guinea pig. We are setting the climate change mitigation agenda. AB32 is the key piece of legislation attempting to sharply reduce this state's greenhouse gas emissions. Economists are now debating what are likely to be the "macro state wide" impacts of this regulation.
There are a large number of papers making cross-national comparisons. Can we compare these apples to the oranges? Is the U.S still richer than China? Is the gap narrowing? This may be an important paper http://www.nber.org/papers/w14499.
I woke up at 520am this morning and jumped into a 6am cab. I knew the street address in West Hollywood where the recording studio is and I assumed that it would be a commercial building. To my surprise, the cab pulled up in front of a nice house on a residential block.
I will make my NPR Radio Debut tomorrow morning. Wish me luck. Our general topic area will be President Obama's New Green Deal.
Shock therapy is back.
President-Elect Obama must be concerned for Detroit's car makers and their workers. Today's New York Times has a "devil's advocate's" article about the benefits of bankruptcy based on the steel industry's experience. Recall that Rust Belt cities such as Pittsburgh were major steel makers.
Do Washington politicians listen to academic economists? Are we influential? The blogs accelerate the "trickle down" of how we communicate with the public. Last week, Chris Mayer tutored the Senators on incentive theory in the housing market. I hope they were appreciative.
Amsterdam moves to close a fifth of 'coffee shops'
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Amsterdam will close almost a fifth of its marijuana cafes to comply with a national ban on having them near schools, the mayor said Friday.
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Amsterdam will close almost a fifth of its marijuana cafes to comply with a national ban on having them near schools, the mayor said Friday.
In the 1970s, radio rock stations would play "classic tapes". These would be live recordings of the Stones, the Doors or The Who that have been rarely played on the radio.
Cruising for free parking exacerbates urban congestion and creates local and global pollution. When demand exceeds supply prices usually rise but in the case of urban parking spots, this hasn't been the case.
Does income inequality decline during recessions? As all Universities feel poorer right now, what gets chopped out of their budgets? Below I report a public letter written by one leading University President.
The original Keynes joked that green money (I realize that pounds are not green) should be put in bottles burried and let the unemployed go look for them and then spend their "winnings" to jump start aggregate demand.
Google can be used to answer many questions. The other night, my son and I were wondering what monkey brains might taste like. I logged on and google told me the answer (chicken) and showed some unappetizing photos that I didn't share with my 7 year old son.
The New York Times loves to publish photos of Southern California on fire. I am surprised that they don't have the rock group REM popup and sing "its the end of the world as we know it." It is 80 degrees here today with blue skies and the smell of smoke has vanished from Westwood.
A couple of facts and then a question. Until the last couple of months, rich Universities have enjoyed a runup in their endowments. At the same time, there has been active "free agency" in trying to recruit senior economics professors.
For ambient ozone, a leading indicator of smog, the average of the top 30 daily peak one-hour readings across the Los Angeles Basin’s 14 continuously operated monitoring stations declined 60% between 1980 and 2005, from 0.24 parts per million (ppm) to 0.094 ppm.
I used to subscribe to Econometrica and People Magazine. I dropped my subscription to the first one; not enough pictures. I have noticed that economists are under-represented in People Magazine. Jeff Sachs is sometimes there but not often enough.
Forget the General Social Survey. In real time, do you want to know what is hot and what is not? http://www.google.com/trends will answer your question. If I may humbly make a suggestion, it would be cool if they stratify this data by U.S county or other geographical units.
Today, I presented two different papers at USC. Neither was on football. In the morning, I participated in a Megacities conference that was held in downtown Los Angeles. Before my session, I heard a 30 min presentation by the new Dean of the USC School of Architecture.
As a younger man, I was a boy scout. I earned one merit badge in cooking. My wife doesn't believe this. I was never promoted above the rank of "Second Class" (she believes that). I think our motto was "be prepared".
Despite Paul Krugman's efforts, economic geography and regional science is not as hot a field as behavioral economics or development. But, the recent Wall Street Bailouts and the forthcoming Detroit Bailouts raise some interesting spatial questions.
Today just before lunch time, Russ Walker (Executive Editor at Grist (gristmill.grist.org) and I had an informal discussion about the recession's consequences for "green policy" in front on 300+ people at the annual Opportunity Green Conference.
UCLA is always filled with great scholars but today the stock of talent is even more impressive. The NBER Conference for Ken Sokoloff is taking place. Dora and Naomi invested a lot of time to put this together and it really looks like a great event. I attended the morning sessions.
In June 2008, I participated in a UCLA graduation. While it was a very nice event, I sat with my fellow faculty colleagues in a weird robe and then was expected to shake hands with all 100+ graduates. The new graduates gave me puzzled looks when I didn't extend a hand to shake.
I wouldn't call this a Lucas Critique. Instead, this history lesson highlights what an exciting place the University of Chicago was in the 1950s due to the "friendly" competition between the Economics Dept. and the Cowles Commission.
We already know that Professors write esoteric papers that few read. Today's New York Times now tells us that we don't influence our students' ideology (see Do Professors Cause Obamania? ). I guess that we have no choice but to sit at the beach and think positive thoughts.
The New York Times business section published an interesting piece by Shiller today. He appears to accuse academic economists of being eager to conform. It appears that he believes that we do not have the right professional incentives to challenge the "conventional wisdom".
