Environmental and Urban Economics

Recent news reports have focused on VW's Emissions cheating scandal.  The fully story is available here.  For those interested in the costs and benefits of regulation, this case study reveals information about the cost of environmental regulation.  VW must have viewed this regulation as very costly to comply with. Otherwise, why would they risk a PR scandal if the company was caught cheating?  This point matters because leading economists have been celebrating the benefits of the Clean Air Act for life expectancy. Read Michael Greenstone's piece here.

Each Sunday I read David Warsh's piece.  This week's column reports a strange quote from Harvard's Larry Summers.

In a relatively close distance to Syria, there are many nations such as Romania who might be willing to participate in a migrant auction.  One possible mechanism would have such nations participate in an auction in which the nation agrees to accept an annual payment and up to 5 million new migrants who will be settled in a new charter city.  Such an auction would allow for information revelation as those nations that value expanding their nation's population would be rewarded for doing so.

Haishi Li is a brand new Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago's Economics Department.   He is a friend and co-author of mine.  He sent me a photo of himself next to a photo of the 1988 Entering Class at the University of Chicago.     This photo is now 27 years old.  For those with good eyes, you will see a young Ed Glaeser in the fourth photo from the left (near Haishi's ear).   You will see me down one row in the 3rd photo from the left.

Nick Kristoff has written a NY Times piece that I learned from and enjoyed reading (a first!).   He celebrates the rise of "fake meat".

He writes;

"So look out. If the alternatives to meat are tasty, healthier, cheaper, better for the environment and pose fewer ethical challenges, the result may be a revolution in the human diet.

“The next couple of years will be exciting ones,” says Joseph D. Puglisi, a Stanford University professor of structural biology who is working on meat alternatives.

This week, I am declaring that Paul Romer wins the competition for posting the most interesting blog post among the economics heavyweights named; Krugman,  Romer ,  Cochrane and Summers.    In his piece titled; "Let them come and they will build it" , Professor Romer writes about the European refugee crisis;

"The real problem is not that people are queuing up to get into Europe.

Don't worry, this will be a G-rated story.  For the last day, the UCLA IOES core faculty  held a retreat at the Topanga Canyon Inn.  Since I'm on leave this year, I haven't seen several of my colleagues for months.   I arrived just before dinner on Wednesday night.  At this dinner, we sat around a big table and there were roughly 12 of us.   We had a group talk about many environmental issues and the group discussion was wide ranging.

Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale must be a very smart guy.  He is tenured at Yale and my wife greatly respects his book Bloodlands.    Google Scholar suggests that has been his big work. We own this book and my wife advised me not to read this WW2 book about Stalin and Hitler because it would depress me.

The NY Times often features Justin Gillis.  Mr. Gillis is very worried about our future if we fail to cap our greenhouse gas emissions. In a piece just published, I will report a few of his choice quotes.

QUOTE #1:

"Burning all the world’s deposits of coal, oil and natural gas would raise the temperature enough to melt the entire ice sheet covering Antarctica, driving the level of the sea up by more than 160 feet, scientists reported Friday.