Environmental and Urban Economics

For all students who have ever slept through an econometrics lecture, have you ever wondered what your professor is really like as a guy? Chant (X'X)^-1(X'Y). This set of interviews offers the "inside scoop". I'd suggest reading the Dhrymes Interview. It is unintentionally very funny and highly correlated with the man I knew at Columbia. The photos didn't come out well but that is small price to pay.

Today is my father's 70th birthday. My brother and I are having trouble believing this. I think of him as age 35 but I'm 43 so the math doesn't look right. All boys are sons of great men but my father is a giant. For the last 40 years, he has worked his tail off at NYU helping to make that Hospital and Medical School great.

Politicians must know that they are not good at picking winners but the urge to use such power must be irresistible. Los Angeles has a 20 acre "green field" site and it would love to offer incentives to build something like Silicon Valley but focused on green tech.

In print, my quote in this Los Angeles Times Article on the "green" military" doesn't look too smart. I apologize. The scale of the U.S Military is such that it creates a "big push" for any activity that the Pentagon focuses on. So, if the Generals "go green", then green entrepreneurs will know that there is a credible demand for their end product. This should reduce the uncertainty of the benefits of engaging in costly irreversible R&D research to build the prototypes.

The decline of U.S manufacturing has lowered low skilled worker wages and greened cities that in the past specialized in such activities.

I am the proud son of an ex-Scarsdale female lawyer, so this story of abandonment and forcing a two girls of ages 10 and 12 to walk 3 miles home makes me think.

I do not know Ms. Primoff or her charming daughters. A couple of thoughts. The kids are not 3 and 5. When I was age 10, I was allowed to walk anywhere I wanted to in Westchester. I was a lazy kid and would not have walked to charming White Plains (it isn't that charming at all; it is concrete and commercial).

Joe Tierney better be ready to debate his ideas. You will know why I like this Salon Piece on the Carbon Kuznets Curve Revisited . Today Josh Angrist is at UCLA. "Harmless Econometrics" is selling quite well. I was thinking of buy a few copies for friends at Midwestern schools.

On the day before Earth Day, the NY Times Joe Tienery gets politically incorrect and argues that economic development is a "friend" of fighting climate change. He throws a healthy punch at the I = P*A*T formula. But, as someone who has written an entire book on this issue, permit me to comment.

Here are the energy facts for the United States over the last 60 years. Note that energy consumption per-capita increases and now has been flat for about 20 years. This is despite ongoing income growth.

NY Times on Social Networks and Survival

I have actually written a paper on this subject. You can consult the 2007 AER to find it, or you can click here. Costa and I do a better job on the econometrics and the identification strategy than the New York Times but the facts are the facts.

Matthew Kahn on Green Jobs . My editor at Foreign Policy (Blake H.) is a terrific writer and editor. If my piece is well written, don't give me the credit for that! You will see that I act tough in tackling the conventional wisdom. I'm hoping that President Obama's economists are prioritizing enacting a carbon incentive. Simply to get Tom Friedman off of their back should be sufficient incentive but this carbon pricing would also offer a few other more valuable long term benefits.

The LA Times Festival of Books will take place next weekend at UCLA. I will take my son to hear Alonzo Mourning speak and my wife may go hear Brooke Shields or Marsha Brady (I don't know her real name) speak about their respective new books. I believe that Harvard Press published the last two.

Once all of that excitement is out of the way, I will work as a CSPAN interviewer. Edward Humes , the author of Ecobarons, is in for a surprise. I will be interviewing this dude on cable TV.