The Economist Magazine has published a "philosophical" piece about climate change mitigation. I'd like to blog about a single paragraph in this piece related to the benefits of reducing global GHG emissions.
From the year 2000 to 2006, I was colleagues with Michael Klein at the Fletcher School. He and a co-author have released an important working paper that is discussed here.
I have now figured out how to operate my office PC and how to deposit a paycheck. At USC Econ, I've even gotten some work done.
Climate scientists continue to warn us that flood risk in coastal areas is increasing because of sea level rise. How do we adapt to this anticipated but vague threat? The threat is vague because we don't know when and how severe and where will any specific flood occur.
When I was a kid, I played Stratomatic baseball. This was a precursor to Billy Beane's Moneyball. Now that I'm no longer a kid, I have signed up for REPEC's fantasy League and below I report my initial roster (that I was assigned at random).
Arthur Brooks' OP-ED focuses on the politics of optimism but I would prefer to recast his focus on what should be the basis of our optimism about our collective future. In 2015, we live in a world with roughly 7.3 billion people whose life expectancy is higher than it has every been.
Jianfeng Wu, Siqi Zheng, Weizeng Sun and I have just released a new NBER paper titled "The Birth of Edge Cities in China: Measuring the Spillover Effects of Industrial Parks".
Abstract
Several Chinese cities have invested billions of dollars to construct new industrial parks.
Abstract
Several Chinese cities have invested billions of dollars to construct new industrial parks.
My parents joined us in Cambridge, MA this week and on Thursday morning I met them outside the Sonesta Hotel as they were reading Paul Krugman's column titled "The MIT Gang".
We are flying back to LA. Hundreds of talented, ambitious and mostly young economists have been meeting at the Sonesta Hotel. The week started off with environmental and urban papers and then labor studies, crime, kids and aging. Plenty of new ideas to think about.
Read Richard Freeman's and Doug Kruse's OP-ED in the New York Times today. They argue that more companies should pay their workers with stock equity in the company. They point out that great companies such as Google and Starbucks already do this.
Do competitive markets treat people fairly? Starbucks offers me a "take it or leave it" offer for their coffee. If I pay $2, I get a "tall" cup. Everyone is charged the same price and treated the same way.
Did Prof. David Neumark agree with Paul Krugman's NY Times piece today praising the benefits of raising the minimum wage? Here are some direct quotes that challenged some things that Becker, Heckman, Rosen, Lazear, Murphy and Topel taught me a long time ago.
What do smoking, not cleaning up dog poop, flushing medications down the toliet, lighting your wood burning chimney, not taking your 1972 Buick for a tuneup and public urination all have in common? These are all funky examples of the Tragedy of the Commons.
Would the NBA offer a better product (i.e a higher quality caliber of basketball) in the absence of player union rules? David Blatt is the coach of LeBron James' Cavs.
Lego is a popular building block in kids toys. Have you ever noticed that Lego pieces are built out of plastic? The WSJ journal reports that the manufacturer wants to reduce its carbon footprint by swapping out plastic and using a "bio-based" input instead. Ingenuity again.
Back in 1989, I was a graduate student and I enjoyed reading the Journal of Economic Perspectives. One classic piece was written by UCSB's Ted Bergstrom where he analyses the efficient distribution of resources (spaghetti) when the economic agents feel altruism for each other. Here is the paper.
This news item reports that the Beijing Central Government will move several low level government activities out of Beijing.
The causal effects of education on health is an important and optimistic hypothesis. More than 40 years ago, Michael Grossman started this literature with this paper based on Gary Becker's household production function approach.
A retired UCLA Sociology Professor has published the following letter in today's NY Times:
To the Editor:
I roomed with Bernie Sanders, the presidential candidate, at the University of Chicago in 1963, and he was not the wild man you describe (“Outsider Went Mainstream, but Message Changed Little,
To the Editor:
I roomed with Bernie Sanders, the presidential candidate, at the University of Chicago in 1963, and he was not the wild man you describe (“Outsider Went Mainstream, but Message Changed Little,
At a time when many NY Times readers want to raise taxes on Wall Street to 80% (see Piketty), Goldman Sachs is launching a "charm offensive" to explain its value added to the economy.
In this gated WSJ Editorial, Gov. Rick Perry is quoted and says; "There is a lot of talk in Washington about inequality. Income inequality. But there is a lot less talk about the inequality that arises from the high cost of everyday life.
In the one factor model of ability, the best chess player would be the best boxer.
