A Coasian View of Matt Damon's Fracking Movie called "Promised Land"
An "intellectual" can write a review without having read the book or seen the movie. While I am not an intellectual, I have read this review of Matt Damon's Promised Land and I have a few thoughts to share.
Fighting Smog in New Delhi, India
The NY Times reports about extremely highly levels of ambient air pollution in the growing city of New Delhi, India. What is to be done? My co-authored ADB paper, "Green Urbanization in Asia" offers some suggestions. Here I want to list a set of possible feasible policy solutions.
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Measuring Impact in 2012: Paul Krugman vs. James Bond
According to Google Trends, 007 defeats the man from Princeton (at least measured in Google Units).
In a competition between Dr. Krugman and Larry Summers and Jeff Sachs, Paul Krugman wins.
What does this all mean? I have no idea.
Bagel Quality in Berkeley and the Rise of Consumer Cities
As more New Yorkers move to California, this shifts who is the "median consumer" and provides incentives for stores and restaurants to raise their game in terms of variety and quality. If you don't believe me, then read this case study of bagels in Berkeley.
Chicken Coops as "Unsanitary Cities"
The NY Times reports that innovative chicken raisers such as Scott Sechler are experimenting with mixing oregano oil into chicken feed in order to grow healthy chickens. This "organic" substitute for antibiotics may reduce bacterial disease in the chickens.
A Research Agenda for Studying Climate Change Adaptation
In this post, I will pose some questions that I know that I don't know the answers to. If you can answer these questions, then you will become an important environmental economist.
Who Can Take a Punch?
This NY Fed piece provides several case studies of employment dynamics in areas that experienced significant natural disaster shocks (h/t to Mark Thoma). Based on these cases, the economists are optimistic about the NY Region's post-Sandy employment dynamics.
Matt Ridley vs. Marty Weitzman
In today's WSJ, Matt Ridley has an optimistic climate change piece. Unlike my work on climate change adaptation, he ignores how capitalist cities, individuals and firms respond to an anticipated challenge.
Estimating Consumption Functions: The Case of Ohio State University Athletes
As an undergraduate at Hamilton and during my first two years of graduate school, I was quite interested in the "consumption function".
Hedge Fund Managers as Public Intellectuals
Today's WSJ has an opinion piece by a prominent University of Chicago graduate. Cliff Asness argues that taxes affect investment behavior. As Washington prepares to make large changes to the tax code, Cliff argues that we need to anticipate the consequences of these tax changes.
Green Cities Revisited: The Case of Sao Paulo Brazil's Tiete and Pinheiros Rivers
Today, the NY Times provides a geography lesson for its U.S readers as it takes us to Sao Paulo, Brazil and introduces us to Jose Leonidio Rosendo dos Santos (JLRDS).
A Crisis in Higher Education?
Labor economists have routinely documented the high economic returns to holding a college degree.
Skiing and Climate Change Adaptation
The NY Times reports that existing ski resorts are suffering because climate change has reduced the number of winter days below 32 degrees and the snow isn't sticking around. The tone of the article is that this is a disaster. A couple of obvious points:
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The Rise of the Low Carbon Consumer City
In a couple of weeks, Matthew Holian and I will release a new NBER Working Paper titled; "The Rise of the Low Carbon Consumer City". An article in today's NY Times manages to summarize the key ideas in our empirical paper.
International Trade in Lamb Facilitates Adapting to Domestic Drought
In this piece, the NY Times tries to count sheep in the U.S West and to blame drought (and hence climate change) for the challenges this industry faces. But, the article highlights the solution to this challenge.
From Neighborhoods to Nations by Yannis M. Ioannides
When I taught at Tufts University, Yannis Ioannides was one of my favorite colleagues. One of the world's top urban economists, he has a broad knowledge of both theory and applied economics.
The Silver Lining of Rust Belt Decline: The Case of Taranto, Italy
Until I read this NY Times article about Taranto, Italy , I wasn't aware that manufacturing activity still took place there. Long time readers of this blog know that I'm a fan of the manufacturing to services transition.
Do You Want to Win a Nobel Prize in Environmental Economics?
I've met some ambitious economists. A subset of these folks are looking for good questions to work on. In this video, I pose a puzzle that I don't know the answer to. I'm trying to answer it.
1.5 Days at NBER
December in Cambridge may be rainy and cold but I'm glad I'm here. Here are all of the economic history papers I listened to over the last 1.5 days at the Goldin Conference. Roughly 100 researchers attended.
The Economist Magazine Discusses Climate Change Adaptation
Here is a new piece in the December 8th 2012 issue of the Economist. Here is their 2010 review of my Climatopolis. As the main ideas of my book begin to be debated (after a two year lag!), I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive pushing my optimistic vision.
Good Papers in Real Estate and Housing Economics
I'm not sure if any Econ Ph.D. students or faculty read anything but to help reduce the search costs for identifying good real estate and housing economics papers, here is a list of papers that I like. This isn't an exhaustive list.
A Counter Example to the "Tragedy of the Commons"
To my deep shock, I learned something today by reading the NY Times. This OP-ED by Andrew Kahrl is actually quite interesting.
Counting Endowed Chairs
UC Berkeley has an excellent Economics Department faculty. From their faculty list, I count sixteen endowed chair professorships (and I'm not counting folks whose primary appointment is in the Haas Business School). In contrast, UCLA Econ has four endowed chairs. I believe that two are unfilled.
Flying from LA to Boston in Early December
Soon I will make a short trip to Cambridge, MA to celebrate a certain economic historian's contributions. The thought of flying from sunny 65 degree LA to cold and dreary Boston in December fills me with bad memories of bad weather. But, life is about tradeoffs.
Academics and "Crossover Appeal"
For all you middle aged academics, who are thinking about your time allocation and how much of your effort to devote to being a public intellectual versus staying firmly in the academic game, read this about Columbia's Professor Sudhir Venkatesh.
