How does a recession end? The cliché story told about World War II is that there was exogenous sharp increase in demand and America’s factories went back to work to supply the needed war supplies.

In that case, the government sent clear signals concerning what it needed and in what quantity.

Here is a blog I read; Glaeser on War

Dora Costa and I have a new book recently published by Princeton Press . The book focuses on the causes and consequences of social networks during the U.S Civil War. In the final chapter we discuss what is known about the "dark side" of social capital.

Are you a good data sleuth? here is a puzzle. Yes, California has a temperate climate that doesn't require much air conditioning but take a close look at this picture below. Note the "divergence big time" between California's per-capita electricity consumption relative to the rest of the nation.

My wife and I have owned a Los Angeles home for 6 months now. The UC is our lender. According to the paperwork we received today, at the rate that we are paying down our principal debt we will own this home outright in 100 years. I take a long term perspective.

More environmental economists should follow Scott Barrett's lead and work on the social science of geoengineering. Here is Scott's paper . What can economists add to this "science stuff"? We have studied choice under uncertainty and this appears to be classic example.

The New York Times Letter to the Editor are always funny. There is true competition to publish there and the cream of the crop usually are pretty good. This one gets an A+.

To the Editor:

It is amusing that Andrew M.

I am a 1987 graduate of the LSE. I wasn't the only American walking around there. The joke was that LSE stood for Let's See Europe. I studied economic history and econometrics there.

Do you ever wonder what causes what? I know that my lectures cause my students to fall asleep but I'm not sure what else I know about causality. Robert Gordon asks a tight causal question in his new nber working paper; "Did Economics Cause World War II?"

Did Economics Cause World War II?

Robert J.

When I was a graduate student over 15 years ago now, my midwestern university didn't offer any courses in international trade or environmental economics. I have tried to overcome my upbringing by doing some work at the intersection of these fields.

Malcolm Gladwell's formula for success includes luck and practice. Meatloaf said that 2 out of 3 ain't bad but what about 1 out of 2? Like Allen Iverson, I don't practice. When predicting whether a book will succeed timing (i.e luck) is crucial.

UCLA's Kal Raustiala presented a recent paper of his at the IOE a few weeks ago. Kal wants to see an international carbon market get up and running. While he had several interesting things to say, I'd like to focus on just part of the argument.

Who says that economists agree? Here are 8 deep thinkers thinking in public. The New York Times should conduct more of these "focus groups". Diverse Views on how to end this recession.

I also thought that this editorial about our oceans was quite good.

Yesterday I listened to Paul Krugman's 2008 Nobel Prize Address, I thought that he did a great job.

Harvard has a lot of smart faculty, students and staff.

Starting in 2006, California has defied standard "free-rider" logic and has ambitiously pursued a sharp unilateral reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions. Free rider logic would say that this makes no sense.

Rather than using the PSID or european data sets to look at correlations across generations, I work backwards from the New York Times obituary section. Jim Morrison was a star student at UCLA.

So if you believe in dynamic skill complementarity (see http://jenni.uchicago.edu/human-inequality/ skill begets skill) and there is an initial sex gap in spatial skills, does this "snowball" into any gender differentials in later life socio-economic outcomes?

Dec.

What will be the general equilibrium consequences of increased government spending? For those sectors where supply curves slope up, someone is going to get a raise. Who are these luck folks? Bob Hall may know .

Most people do not like attending meetings but this sounds like an important one . I read that Professor John Weyant will be there. I'm hoping that academics are well represented at this meeting.

In the midst of this financial crisis, some nerdy economists are wondering whether we are as smart as we thought we were. If you economists need an ego boost, this analysis and discussion will convince you that we are still wise in the ways of the force .

We all solve portfolio problems. How to invest your money across different assets to maximize your risk adjusted return? Today Universities wish that they held cash rather than Chrysler stock.

We hope that our new book's arrival time is well placed.

I am preparing a popular article on the "geography" of green products. So, the Prius tends to be found in Malibu and Santa Monica but not in Beverly Hills. This piece may soon appear as a UCLA Institute of the Environment Report Card Brief.

The New York Times today has an interesting article providing details on how online advertisers are experimenting to learn about what makes an advertisement effective in a world filled with diverse shoppers. Field Experiment on Effective Advertising .

Have you ever wondered what is going in modern academic psychology departments these days? If you have, keep reading. I have been frustrated by how expensive are the entry costs for using these fMRI machines.

Can the Green Obama Push create new jobs, end the recession and green the economy? Here is a quick sketch of two possible pathways.

Pathway #1:

Reform the tax code such that we raise the carbon tax and we cut income taxes.

Paul Krugman writes "Right now there’s intense debate about how aggressive the United States government should be in its attempts to turn the economy around. Many economists, myself included, are calling for a very large fiscal expansion to keep the economy from going into free fall.

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.

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