Environmental and Urban Economics

The A-List was out in force today at the market. Dora and I were there and people continue to think that I may be Quentin Tarantino (unfortunately I do see the resemblance). As an avid reader of People Magazine, I was quick to spot three young people who often grace its pages. Ashlee Simpson , her husband --- the tattooed Pete Wentz --- and baby seemed to be having a nice morning. Even "important people" can have a peaceful start to their day.

I am now listening to my son play his violin --- he is playing the Star Wars music that I bought for him. Yoda might not recognize the sound but the neighbors love it. We encourage him to play outside so that all of our nearby "friends" can hear it. This is payback for their barking dogs.

According to this website , Dora and I had a 82% chance to make it to our 12th anniversary. My son's violin playing (Star Wars symphony) is not helping. As I flashback to May 29th 1998, I remember that it was a very hot day in Cambridge, MA. My grandfather married us and he did a great job. With all of the details we had to attend to, we had forgotten to memorize our vows and stood up there with our printed copies of "the script".

In the past, the Congress voted on new risk reduction regulation shortly after environmental disasters took place. What will this recent BP Spill trigger?

Thomas Friedman would vote for a "Patriot Tax" and I agree with him but I don't see the President suggesting a two dollar a gallon tax on gasoline right now.

While I'm suffering and thinking, my humanities colleagues at UCLA and Stanford are rocking out . Equal pay for equal work!

I can't imagine Milton Friedman or even Paul Krugman or Randy Wright attempting the following;

"A rakish band of Stanford professors and their cronies is rocking out through tune after tune in a university rehearsal space on a hot spring afternoon.

Recently, I've been thinking about the health impacts caused by exposure to various chemicals. While not revisiting Woodstock or other hippie arenas, I would like to know the answers to some deep "perception versus reality" questions. For common products such as perfumes or toliet cleaners, what chemicals do they actually have in them? What is their "secret sauce"? Such facts would be the cold reality --- now perceptions are key here.

Los Angeles did not make the top 10! I guess I raised the average weight around here. Sacramento ranks #7 in terms of the fittest cities in the U.S (read here ). Perhaps because of President Obama and Larry Summers, Washington DC ranks #1.

Here's the top ten:

1. Washington, D.C.

2. Boston

3. Minneapolis-St. Paul

4. Seattle

5. Portland, Ore.

6. Denver

7. Sacramento

8. San Francisco

9. Hartford

10.

Ed Glaeser makes some excellent points in this piece about public sector compensation. Permit me to add my 2 cents.

1. As Paul Samuelson taught us in the context of his overlapping generations model (OLG), in a growing economy --- we can run a ponzi scheme. The current old are fed by the current middle aged and in the next generation when the current middle aged are old, they will be fed by the current young who will then be middle aged and so on.

Could an article such as this (an LA Times interview with William Shattner) appear in the New York Times? I don't think so. The LA Times invests less effort in discussing the Wall Street/Washington corridor and devotes more time to the big personalities hanging around Hollywood. I guess this is comparative advantage and I prefer the LA Times to the NY Times. The NY Times may cover more important people but my hometown newspaper reports about more interesting people.

Here is a press release providing details about a new executive education program that UCLA's Institute of the Environment will offer in July 2010. We've been working hard to prepare a relevant and challenging curriculum. We have assembled a "Dream Team" to teach this one week mini-course. I've been thinking of enrolling my parents in this class so that they can learn how I view the "green economy".

UCLA's Elinor Ochs has her research profiled on the front page of the New York Times today. In this article , we learn about how she spent $9 million dollars to videotape 32 Los Angeles families over the years 2002 to 2005.

"“This is the richest, most detailed, most complete database of middle-class family living in the world,” said Thomas S. Weisner, a professor of anthropology at U.C.L.A. who was not involved in the research. “What it does is hold up a mirror to people. They laugh.