Environmental and Urban Economics

These are exciting days to be an environmental economist.

In today's NY Times, Rob Stavins and I are both quoted in this piece about California's continued effort to launch a serious carbon cap and trade program as part of its ambitious AB32 legislation.   I would love to see this effort succeed but I would like to focus on a slightly different point here.

My wife was kind enough to point out this great letter in today's NY Times Magazine.   Permit me to quote it in full:

"In Andrew Goldman’s interview of Larry Summers, my colleague Joseph Stiglitz is cited for saying Summers ignores arguments that he doesn’t like.

This article discusses one of the major questions in social science;  is Brentwood or Beverly Hills the right place for a Los Angeles celebrity to live?  I live in neither area so I can objectively write about this hot button issue.

UCLA is still in session and I've been teaching 2 courses this quarter. My undergraduates yawn in class and some of my MBA students wonder what in the heck I am talking about.  I am feeling the effects of aging.

Is a penny only a penny?  We see firms pricing products for $9.99 to avoid "double digits" or $99.99 to avoid a "triple digit" price tag.

There are plenty of exciting popular economics books being released each month.  An author faces the challenge of how you "stay relevant" when you face such high quality competition.    Here is my most recent effort.

As Baby Boomers age, their aggregate demand for products will create new markets for innovators.  Acemoglu and Linn (2004)  have anticipated future news stories such as this one.  I believe that the same dynamic will unfold in the case of climate change adaptation.

Is Chicago the last bastion of rational planning?   I don't think so.  Self interest will nudge even those who don't work in Hyde Park to anticipate how climate change will affect their lives.

This discussion  at Political Science Job Rumors (don't ask why I read it) is informative.   Kristof of the NY Times wrote a piece celebrating randomized trials as a source of credible information about effective interventions for helping the poor.

Michele Boldrin and David Levine have written a powerful critique of critics of their book.   I respect their paper on a number of levels.  As the author of a controversial book, I can appreciate the opportunity to be given a fresh chance to revisit criticism.

This article summarizes a new World Bank study highlighting the challenges posed by corrupt officials and middle men in targeting poverty reduction aid to the poor in India.  To quote the NY Times,

"The World Bank on Wednesday recommended a radical overhaul of India’s social programs.

In the year 2040, what will people in California do all day long?  We are likely to be an older population so we may be content to sit around and enjoy the sun and eat our good local fruit to raise our fiber intake.   But, some people will actually have to work for a living.

Columbia Business School has announced a new policy that requires its faculty to reveal all details (perhaps not compensation) about their outside activities.  Such "sunshine laws" should be adopted everywhere.   Markets are more efficient when there is less asymmetric information.

I hadn't heard of the company Zanran until I read Donald Marron's blog post in the CS Monitor.  Until now, when I have been searching for some piece of data -- I have gone to Advanced Google and set the option on ".xls" to search for some file.  I knew that this was an inefficient way to search.

Persuasion is a major research topic in economics right now.

I used a teleprompter for the first time for a video and I now have a better sense of how it makes public speakers look sharp.   I wrote the script and as I read it to the camera -- I tried to look earnest.   Here is Rob Lowe talking without a teleprompter in an interview with the NY Times.

I was born in Chicago and spent some time in graduate school there.  I spent a fair bit of time in the early 1990s watching Michael Jordan dunk and Frank Thomas hit homers.   The people of Chicago are in deep thought about their mayorial transition from a Daley to a Dancer.

At a given point in time, farmers must choose what crops to grow.  The wise farmer will compare his expected profits from each choice.  Profits will depend on input choices, his production technology, climate conditions and world prices of output.

If you are looking for a home in the $5 million+ range then skim the listings here.  All of these homes are somewhere in LA. You can buy Jodie Foster's home or Eddie Murray's ex-wife's home.   My personal favorite is the home of the actor who played "Al Bundy" in Married With Children.

In a pinch of irony, the Sierra Club is upset about California's nascent Carbon Cap & Trade program. Has the Sierra Club joined the Tea Party?  That would be Time-AOL merger!   At the tender age of 45, I speak in cliches.  "Every journey starts with a first step".

After carefully studying the spreadsheet posted here, I can now confidently say that I'm one of the world's leading experts on Economists' pay at the University of Texas at Austin.

In Climatopolis, I argue that urban growth will help us to adapt to climate change.  Cities make us richer (due to trade, learning and specialization) and income will help people to adapt to the challenge of climate change.

Suppose that you want to attract billions of New York State tax dollars to the city of Buffalo.

Economists have bored generations of students talking about "backstop technologies" but maybe our students were wrong to tune out.  This article sketches the cool case of electric vehicles playing a key role replacing gasoline vehicles in the wrecked cities of Northeast Japan.

Samuel Clemens published under the pen name of Mark Twain.

Many urban economists are interested in gentrification and how declining urban areas make a comeback.  Think of Manhattan in the 1970s.  Those were gritty days in the Big Apple featuring murder, pollution, litter, smoke, and dog poop.  It was not the "green city" that it is today.

A professor's compensation has several pieces to it.  Everyone knows about the 9 month salary and the teaching load but there are other important pieces such as the retirement package, the health care package and tuition waivers for kids and spouses.

Both novelists and academics have argued that climate change will increase violence around the world.  Homer-Dixon and David Victor have had a productive debate on this topic.  Do I have anything to add? Unlikely, but the truth can't slow you down.

Ed Glaeser has recently written about his  views on urban rankings.  Permit me to offer my views.

The U.S has roughly 300 major cities.

The truth hurts.

I am running out of opportunities to promote my Climatopolis book.  I know that the Journal of Economic Literature will publish a review in a few months but it turns out that the JEL isn't read by everyone.  Here is a five minute video from my interview in Maastricht, Holland in March 2011.

Here are all of the details about my recent appearance on C-SPAN.  If you watch the hour video, you will see that the skeptical audience comes around and eventually cheers on free market economics.  I tried my best to do a good job.