Environmental and Urban Economics

Next monday radio listeners in Philadelphia will have a treat. I'll be on the 1020am NPR radio show along with Duke's Gary Gereffi and we will be talking about "green jobs". I anticipate that I will be asked to play "bad cop".

When is a political leader a "Chicken Little" versus when is he a prudent educator helping the distracted populace have the right priorities and perceive the correct subjective probabilities of future climate change outcomes?

It appears that Energy Secretary Chu is facing this issue.

Each morning I read the New York Times front section backwards. I start at the editorial page (to learn from Dowd and Krugman) and then move towards the front page. I was reading page A14 today when I saw my name and a quote of mine on the topic of California and climate change.

Working with Siqi Zheng and Hongyu Liu of Tsinghua Univ. in Beijing, I have managed to write a new NBER Working Paper on China's Major cities.

Steven Chu is a Nobel Laureate and our new Energy Secretary. He has been quoted as saying that climate change could make water so scarce in California that agricultural production may grind to a halt there by 2100. Today in John Tierney's NYT Article fumbles the ball. He asks a good question.

Ever since I published my Green Cities book in 2006, I have thought about writing a sequel on green cities and climate change. In the new edition of MIT's Technology Review, there is a long excellent article on one case study; A "Green City" in the desert .

This weekend we were in Laguna Beach in Orange County. I thought that Santa Monica has a nice beach but Laguna wins. We didn't like the restaurants and we didn't like our hotel. Don't stay at the Hotel Laguna. It appears to have been built in 1875. I don't need antique plumbing. I am a princess.

What would Larry Summers have to say to Tony Mills? Tony posted this entry at the end of Ed Glaeser's blog post today on the Obama Housing Proposal.

"I’m just kicking myself for not taking on a mortgage I couldn’t afford when I was offered the chance back in 2005.

Some good game theorists should explain how we co-ordinate beliefs when we receive common signals about the economy.

Google's letter to the California PUC. Larry and Sergey please get in touch with me. I have a few ideas on how to harness your energy technology. My ideas will promote the public good and will only cause a little bit of evil.

Dora and I are grateful that the Los Angeles Times was willing to run an article about our new book today. With so much attention focused on the macroeconomy and "panic", we applied microeconomists still need our day in the sun.

This is the age of diminished expectations. Perhaps some over-eating will decline as we academics face a higher price per tasty calorie. Such food cuts must be the tip of the iceberg. As the Deans look for fat in the school budgets, I wonder if they should take a close look at the libraries.

UCLA geographers urge U.S. to search 3 structures in Pakistan for bin Laden

Basic logic, principles of geography point to Parachinar as likely hideout

Meg Sullivan, msullivan@support.ucla.edu

While U.S.

These are tough days. I still believe that California could close its budget deficit by taxing water consumption. Choose a non-linear pricing system such that low consumption households would face a lower marginal price than pool owners and grass growers. The state needs new sources of revenue.

I no longer like birthdays. 43 may be a prime number but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. While I think of myself as an Assistant Professor, the truth hurts. I think that my research is getting better over time. Some referees seem to disagree but I disagree with their disagreement.

Harvard people appear to be doing well in the new Obama Administration. This must be due to both selection (who gets in) and treatment (what they learn and who they meet) while at this elite school.

MIT's Peter Temin wrote a tough book review in late 2008 published in the Journal of Economic Literature. He clearly stated that the Minnesota world view is not useful for understanding the Great Depression. Here is a well known Nobel Laureate Prescott's Response.

These are tough days for the newspaper industry. The New York Times today tried to make the case for why it is a relevant institution. Today's LA Times makes a more cogent case for its relevance in my life. In this article below, they mention my son.

Marshal Zeringue has created a great website for people who like books. He approaches authors of new books and encourages them to discuss their book's page 99. This random sampling design was good for me and Dora. Page 99 of our Heroes and Cowards is actually interesting.

I appreciate a thoughtful memo. This email was more interesting than 98% of the stuff that I receive. I can't tell if Wayne is aware that I co-wrote the paper that he comments on below but I appreciate his honesty.

Harvard's Economics Dept. has made a credible case that it should receive some of the Obama Stimulus $ to help create new teaching jobs in their excellent department.

I was interviewed today for half an hour by a talented interviewer named Devin Browne. She is preparing a 4 minute radio piece on the ecovenience movement. I'm hoping that she will find some of my witty quotes about the demand for green products useful.

Maybe I will go to graduation this year. I'm unlikely to see Jim Morrison there but I may spot Troy Aikman. The average lifetime earnings of UCLA sociology majors is about to rise. Dora says that this sounds like the plot of a Simpson's Episode.

Everbody is clucking that economic theory has not helped us with this financial crisis. But, I keep seeing economics being relevant in day to day situations. In this narrative below, I like the quote from the Israeli looking for an arbitrage opportunity during the recent battle.

With 100s of academic economists all speaking at once, how is my mom to know who to believe during this stressful time? If she called me, I would suggest that she read this Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy WSJ Piece.

It turns out that Parents do matter. Now, I am worried about myself and my son's future. If your dad likes beer, you like beer.

Well a deep recession certainly helps to shrink your carbon footprint but perhaps there are other ways to be good "green citizens"? The nice people at PGE offer some clues at that this website; http://www.pge.com/myhome/environment/calculator/assumptions.shtml

Glaeser/Kahn paper on standardized urb

For 18 years now, students have been telling me that I'm not funny. After watching this 2 minute Reuters television clip, I'm now thinking that they are right. Maybe I should stick to radio. I do thank the Obama Team's green job push for letting me have some "mike time".

Prof. Rob Stavins of Harvard has started a new blog. I will encourage my UCLA students to read it. Some people have told me that mitigating greenhouse gas emissions represents a low priority for Larry Summers.

Are you worried that President Obama will put a cap on academic economists' salaries? To put your mind at ease, I thought that a history lesson might help. Given that public transit is "shovel ready" stuff, it is important to know where we have been.

Public transit is cheap and slow. Private vehicles are fast and expensive. Your value of time and whether you are trying to get downtown (the central focus of public transit) play key roles in determining which mode you choose.

Barro, Glaeser and Mankiw may need to do a lot of teaching for Harvard from now on. It appears that everyone else has left. Some great policy thinkers are heading to the capital to serve their country.

Unless I am mistaken, I heard the great heavy metal band Motley Crue playing an outdoor gig at some mansion a 1/2 mile from my house tonight. From following the loud sound of "Girls, Girls, Girls", I traced the sound to a mansion just about here.

In the year 2011 when "confidence" is back and the economy is growing, what will be the size of the budget deficit? Will a dangerous precedent have been set? While Keynes talked about scaling back government "G" during good times, he didn't suggest a credible mechanism such that politicians would ac

Why do some people take pro-green actions while others do not? Abstracting from explicit pollution taxes and other regulations that introduce financial penalities for having a large carbon footprint, why do we differ? Over the course of two days, the New York Times has explored two possible explanat