Environmental and Urban Economics

On Thursday, hundreds of economists will return to the University of Chicago to celebrate Gary Becker's contributions.   I have not been back to UC for a year now but I'm looking forward to seeing my old friends, and the Department's new building.  

I was a student at the University of Chicago from 1988 to 1993.  21 years is a long time and I barely remember my time there.  I remember meeting my future wife and trying to write a thesis.  With the exception of Jim Heckman's class and Gary's Econ 301 lectures, I really have no memory of the coursework.   I do remember the intensity of the place and the talented students were attracted to study there.

Many graduates of the University of Chicago will return at the end of this week to celebrate Gary Becker's contributions to Economics and to building up the University of Chicago.  Their next generation of economists have big shoes to fill.   Given Gary's focus on human capital, it is fitting that the NY Times today ran a piece about Harold Horowytz, who ran Zabar's deli counter from 1972 to 1992.  For those who don't know Zabar's , it is Manhattan's best deli.

From a public health perspective, it makes sense to quarantine potentially Ebola infected people but who has the property rights here?  Imagine a world where people have the right to not be quarantined. In this case, society would need to pay them for each of the 21 days we seek to quarantine these individuals.

I have recently read biographies of the Late Night Comic Johnny Carson and the guitarist Joe Perry.    Carson's book is written by his ex-lawyer.

Carson hired Henry Bushkin when Bushkin was a young man and Carson was already famous.   Carson expected 100% completely loyalty and service.  This book suggests that Carson was a very complex hedonist who only felt alive when he was on stage and was a lonely man (thinking too much about his cold mother) when he was not on stage.

The New York Times sketches that local officials in Florida are stepping up and enacting policies to reduce their area's exposure to emerging climate change risk.   Back in 2010, I published my Climatopolis book that offered a broad sketch of how city growth and city competition will facilitate climate change adaptation.  I will immodestly point out that I was ahead of my time.

The Growth Accounting crew wants to talk about the coming slowdown in China's economic growth.   As I walk UCLA's campus, I see thousands of Chinese students enrolled seeking to learn and planning to return home.  What is the net effect of this investment in human capital on China's future growth.

I have vanished for a while but now I'm back to offer a few thoughts.

1.  The Ebola case in NYC offers an interesting test of self protection theory.  When the sick doctor checked into Bellevue there was a sudden surge in Bellevue Staff taking sick days.   Coincidence?

2.  While my Hebrew is a bit rusty, I must admit that I like this interview which I served up in early July 2014 in Tel Aviv.

3.  The Riviera Golf Club is very nice.  I wonder if they would accept my family as new members?

4.

Simon Dietz and Nicholas Stern have a new paper celebrating the Nordhaus Model for measuring the cost of climate change.  I would like to discuss their equation (4) on page 10 of the paper.

Environmental economists who do CGE modeling continue to introduce a damage parameter such that the damage to the capital stock is a deterministic function of a polynomial of global average temperature.

In the NY Times Style Section, there is an interesting article about the shifting balance of power within California.   The Hollywood Moguls traveled to Silicon Valley because they know that the real $ is there.  What are the gains to trade between Hollywood and Silicon Valley?

The Cliche is that Silicon Valley needs content for its platforms while Hollywood wants $.   One can imagine a future where there is no work/leisure divide.

The beach community of Santa Monica has a small airport where rich guys land their private planes.  All airports take up a lot of room and this one may be 230 acres of land within 3 miles of the beach.  More facts about the airport are here.   Is this an efficient allocation of scarce resources?

I would guess that if this land were sold to real estate developers on 1/4 acre plots that these 1000 new homes would sell for $1.5 million each.