Environmental and Urban Economics

Social scientists are in deep thought about breast-feeding.   Leading economists have worked on this topic and now UCLA psychologists are working on this.  While I don't plan to work on this topic, I reserve the option of doing so in the future.

Alan Krueger is a great choice to lead the CEA but is it his job to figure out how to "create jobs" for the U.S economy?   I don't think so.  The NY Times wants us to have more manufacturing jobs and it has vehicle batteries on the the brain.

My mom still hopes that I will become an urban planner while my father wants me to enroll at his medical school..  She wants me to be useful but my human capital is no longer putty as it has turned into clay.

Do "green buildings" sell and rent for a price premium?    This LA Times article  discusses some recent research on this topic including my solar paper (joint with Costa, Dastrup and Graff-Zivin).

This has been a tough week for the Northeast; one quake and now some heavy rain.    I'm sitting in sunny, cool Berkeley reading posts such as this one and looking at flood maps such as the one below.

I would be shocked if this hurricane causes deaths in the Northeast.

Think about a chain of retail stores such as a Starbucks or Safeway.

Here  is a cross-post that I wrote for the UCLA Ziman Center's new real estate blog. If you skim through the blog entries, you will see a diverse set of faculty and students writing for this blog.  We are trying to highlight that UCLA is a hub of real estate research activity.

Here is a clash of two titans named Krugman and Rogoff.  Dr. Krugman says that it is cheap for the U.S to borrow right now and that there must be some NPV>0 projects that the federal government can invest in --- so we should increase our debt to stimulate the economy now.

The Northeast has survived its 5.8 scale quake and will learn from the experience.  The first earthquake I experienced in Berkeley made me think that a subway train was about to arrive.  But, then I realized I wasn't in NYC and that it must have been a quake.

The following quote was presented in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

Public Eavesdropping

"She can't be homophobic.

Milstein Properties is rolling out new housing in Southern Manhattan's Battery Park City.  This real estate isn't cheap.  As this article explains, it will cost $1,300 a square foot while its local competition costs a mere $1,000 per square foot.

I lead by counter-example.  My students and my son observe what I do and then do the opposite.  This strategy works but it isn't for everybody.

1. I have written papers on household carbon footprints in both the United States and in China so I continue to be interested in other scholars' carbon footprint calculations.  This study examines the carbon footprint of indoor Cannabis production.

I gave a lecture on climate change adaptation today to a group of 40 Ph.D. econ students from all of the UC campuses.  As you know, I place individuals and individual firms as our first line of defense in protecting us from the challenge of climate change.

To my deep surprise, I have found a website (that I didn't create) that has posted all of the references that I listed at the end of my 2006 Brookings Press Book; Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment.  The website does not name me as "the source" for this reference list.

The lead investigator of this new survey sold me my current house.  How does he propose that we finance the expenditures that he is asking "us" to incur?

Aug.

How does the NY Times choose who should write its OP-ED pieces?  Paul Krugman was a wise choice but does Joe Nocera merit such a monopoly?  I know that he has a business news niche as he dishes dirt on what deals are going down but his knowledge of economics is shaky at best.

Have you noticed that economists do not agree about what are the causes and cures for our current malaise?   Right now we seek to reduce the budget deficit and to reduce unemployment.

When applied researchers fire up their Stata 12.0 version, we should keep in mind that all of the "ado" files embody past major contributions to statistics and econometrics.  Paul Meier's 1958 JASA paper has generated 35,000 cites.

New UCLA research on water supply suggests that the answer is "yes".  So, here is the "dance step".  Climate scientists alert us to the natural capital challenges posed by climate change.

While at PERC in Bozeman Montana,  I was interviewed about free markets and climate change adaptation.   Here is the video.

There appears to be growing consensus that climate change adaptation is an important topic to study. Since economists have opinions (and expertise) about everything, I have created a short reading list  to encourage more young people to enter this lively field.

This article  tells a depressing tale.  After the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in Spring 2011, people who lived close to the plant sought to migrate to a safer location.

Has the recent decline in the stock market been on your mind?  We own a few shares of this and that and I'm feeling a pinch poorer but I'm thinking about my University and your university's medium term hiring plans.  Senior economists have gained from the "free agency" flush times of the 2000s.

Bozeman is a charming city with roughly 40,000 people. It is a "green", low crime city.   Here are some facts about recent "incidents" from the Bozeman police reports.  This town has a safer feel to it than my LA.

Read through this list. I didn't make this stuff up and it is pretty funny.

Many young economics students have taken a quick nap as their professor mumbled about the production possibilities frontier.  While my colleagues would talk about "guns versus butter", I was cool and would talk about the "guns versus roses" tradeoff (get it?).