Environmental and Urban Economics

The Director of my UCLA Institute has just edited a special issue for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here is Glen MacDonald's PNAS Volume link.

Given the growth of population and jobs in the Southwest and the basic need for water, if the supply of water is threatened by drought --- how can this region continue to flourish?  An economist would say that allowing water prices to reflect scarcity would take care of this problem.   Consider Peter Gleick's quote;

"Part of the challenge we face in the Southwest is old-style thinking," said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and an author of another analysis. "We brought to the Southwest very European ideas about water, developed in water-rich areas. ... That worked OK for a while, although not really.

If homes weren't durable (and thus melted in one year like a piece of pizza), how many people would live in Detroit today?   Glaeser and Gyourko argue that Detroit's population would be much smaller.  Past investment decisions in real estate development sometimes turn out to be a irreversible mistake. We end up with infrastructure, housing and buildings where we currently do not need it.

My Grist Blog  entry on Climatopolis.  I thank Grist for being open minded and fair.

Grist has republished an angry review of Climatopolis.  Permit me to make two points about myself and my work on the economics of climate change.

1.  I would love to see the world reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but I don't believe that we will in medium term.  Why?  You can read my academic papers on this subject here and here and especially here.

2.

In this column, Paul Krugman says some wise stuff.  As an applied micro economist, he starts with some facts: "Oil is back above $90 a barrel. Copper and cotton have hit record highs. Wheat and corn prices are way up. Over all, world commodity prices have risen by a quarter in the past six months."

He offers some speculations about the causes of these price dynamics.

I wonder if Hayek owned a cell phone?   This article about the cell phone reports that soon you will be able to determine whether you are exposed to high levels of air pollution just by waving your phone around.

"Rather than using cell phones to just snap photos of friends or the occasional celebrity sighting, phone users in California may get the chance to track levels of harmful black soot near their workplaces and homes.

Don Fullerton tells all here.   What's new in urban economics?  You have a choice.  You can read this or this.

An example  worth reading.  You won't learn much about our future under climate change but you will see a laundry list of uncertainties related to how climate change will affect us in the future.  You will see that this researcher admits that "he knows that he does not know" what climate change will mean for specific migration patterns.

The Yale Students who Joel Waldfogel surveyed at the start of his Scroogenomics research project could never have anticipated that someone could order this "Gift" as a public speaker for their event.  Call now.

My Christmas gifts to you include My blog entry  and Lucas Davis's academic paper.  The key issue here is the Becker --- full price of operating the energy using product. If you use your time as an input (recall that driving a car requires gas and your time) then the Jevons point doesn't hold (see my blog entry).  If increased energy efficiency lowers the full price of owning and operating the good (such as an air conditioner) then the extensive margin matters.