Environmental and Urban Economics

In this new 8 minute YouTube video,  I talk through one of the most important insights in modern transportation economics.

The WSJ reports that Chinese investors are building residential housing in New York City targeted to Chinese mainland buyers.   This doesn't appear to be ethnic favoritism.

Academic economists are well paid by their universities but many superstar academics do additional consulting.

The NY Times reports that the great drought is causing the Mississippi River to retreat and this means that big boats can't use it to ship goods because they will hit the ground on the bottom of the river.

This is a blog post about climate adaptation and a spatial separating equilibrium played out in a sequential game.  In this game, government must make a choice to either embrace benevolent paternalism or engage in tough love.   There are two types of people.  One type is called "Mr.

Academic geographers use remote sensing techniques to measure the "footprint" of growing cities.  From outer space, you can identify how much land area a metropolitan area such as Cairo or Boston takes up and how this changes over time.  Researchers such as Yale's Karen Seto track these footprints.

Self interested people have an incentive to form their best guesses about the probabilities and impacts of different future scenarios.

There are three very good articles in today's NY Times focused on climate change adaptation.  First, there is an article on how to use solar power as a backup electricity provision technology when power lines fall down. Second, the Arts section discusses several ideas related to flood barriers.

The World Bank's core mission is to foster equitable economic growth in the developing world.   I have always assumed that its research team were fans of free markets and capitalism's amazing ability to provide opportunities and possibilities.

For young geographers,  here is a useful map.   I see certain obvious geographical patterns in these maps.  Those who are risk averse must move to higher ground.   Urban economists have consistently argued that urban zoning laws must be changed to allow for more high rise construction.

For those of you who worry that our civilization is crumbling, read this NY Times piece about life on the quiet car on Amtrak. You will be introduced to a place that is supposed to be quiet where rules of the game are set and people are supposed to follow them.

Are young people susceptible to new ideas?  I'm not so sure.  In my 22 years teaching undergraduates, I've met some dogmatic Bayesians who were not eager to update their view of the world.

Ed Glaeser has argued that the whole world's population could comfortably live in a land area the size of Texas.  Presumably, their food would be grown somewhere else?   In my talks with reporters about Sandy, I have touched on the idea of the "Venn Diagram".

Does the expected utility model explain why some individuals choose to not evacuate an at risk area as a natural disaster approaches?  A silver lining of Hurricane Sandy is that its salience guarantees that future storms will cause fewer deaths because more people will obey future evacuation orders.

My friend Holger Sieg delivers an excellent undergraduate lecture at the Univ. of Penn highlighting why environmental and urban economics is such an exciting research field.

Competition is good. While it creates anxiety and it isn't cool, competition nudges us to raise our game.  If you don't believe me, then read this NY Times article about the monopolist LIPA's lack of preparation for Hurricane Sandy.

Here is a quote from the article.

The WSJ previews some different investment options for coastal cities in the face of natural disaster risk.  Note the search for solutions!  Don't forget Julian Simon's optimism that a larger population offers more possible good ideas.

This Yale piece is quite good.  My recent AB32 webinar convinced me that there is great interest in the Cap & Trade field experiment that California is now launching.

Tim Groseclose discusses regression coefficients in a letter to the UCLA Daily Bruin that relates to a study conducted by UCLA Law's Rick Sander.   Here is a letter signed by 57 of my UCLA colleagues and here is Rick Sander's piece on UCLA undergraduate admissions.

I just downloaded a free copy of the National Academy Press's new book on climate change impacts.  An impressive set of scholars participated but I don't see any academic economists on the following list.

To rebuild a damaged area requires large capital investments.

The Atlantic has a subtle piece about this topic.  My parents live in Manhattan. My father teaches at NYU.  My brother and his family live in an at risk part of New Jersey.

John Cochrane and Austan Goolsbee held a debate on economic policy last week.  Here are Cochrane's opening remarks.       To paraphrase the Beatles, "All you Need is 4% Growth".  Forget love, we need growth.   Last year, the Clark Medalist President George W.

A BBC reporter asked me whether Hurricane Sandy reduced the death count relative to what it would have been during a normal period?  She was making a nice "crowding out" point.

In my 2010 Climatopolis, I talk at length about individual and firm level experimentation as we seek new solutions for adapting to climate change shocks.

Jerry Hausman is a straight shooter.  In this well written Journal of Economics Perspective piece, he presents  a coherent critique of contingent valuation as a credible tool for valuing non-market goods.

This interview offers an overview of his new book's main themes.  For those who do not have the strength to turn the book over, here are the book's back cover quotes.   I'm disappointed that nobody asked me to supply one.  I haven't heard of the three economists quoted below.

A team of Brown University economists have used lights at night to study economic growth around the world.  You can read their paper here.    Economists have pointed out the discontinuity in light at night at the South Korea/North Korea border.

This is a blog post focused on things I don't know.  While there are many things I don't know, I will try to focus on incentives and coastal development.  Let's start with the facts.

Fact #1:   The U.S population and income is moving to the coasts;  see Rappaport and Sachs 2003.

The University of Chicago contacted Dora about giving an Alumni talk and I will substitute for her.  Since some of you will not be there to hear my words, I thought I would provide you with an outline of my talk.

Read the comments at the bottom of this article about NYU's electricity troubles.  There are a  number of folks out there who believe that self interested people will respond to disaster forecasts by investing in self protection.   Now, let's see some research testing this hypothesis.

Millions of people and billions of $ of assets are located in Northeast coastal cities.

Recently, my family took a tour of a leading Los Angeles school and we saw the following nudge presented on each outdoor lunch table.  It says;  "Most people clean up after themselves".

Given that UCLA tends to ignore my media mentions, I have to do this heavy lifting myself.  Business Week discusses my thoughts on Coastal Insurance and moral hazard here.   Ed Glaeser discusses my work on natural disasters in the Boston Globe.