Environmental and Urban Economics

Perhaps I should move to Oklahoma?   I had a great talk with Trent England in this radio segment.   We spoke about urban quality of life and the free market's role in improving our quality of life during a time of increased climate risk.

Here are some questions that I do not know the answer to:   How much economic damage will Hurricane Harvey cause?  Given that 11 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on Houston, will Houston's long run economy be injured? How quickly do modern cities bounce back from natural disasters?

More closely related to my research; it appears that this disaster's death count (and death rate per million people) is low (relative to Sandy and Katrina).

Here is a scary news piece claiming that exposure to certain types of yoga mats increases a woman's risk of being infertile.  This claim is based on this technical research article.   I'm blogging about this because I did some consulting for the State of California's Department of Toxic Substances Control related to its Green Chemistry Initiative.

While economists fixate on the top 5 "general journals", there are several other journals that publish interesting research.    Take a look at this special issue of the Asian Development Bank's main journal. I"m proud of my paper on climate change adaptation and urbanization.

President Trump's team seek to renegotiate parts of NAFTA to encourage the revitalization of U.S manufacturing.  How is consumer welfare affected if there is some domestic protectionism to keep foreign imports out?  In our 2015 paper, we explore this theme in the case of public transit buses.  We argue that the "Buy America Act" encourages urban transit agencies to purchase U.S produced buses.

We are teaching our 16 year old son the dark art of econometrics.    I asked him the following question.  Nutritionists claim that eating peanut butter makes you fat.   A statistician (who is not trained in economics) has attended a "field experiment" conference in Cambridge and has received a big grant to randomly assign jars of peanut butter to people.

China's economy is growing faster than the U.S economy.  Yes, China is "catching up" to the rich U.S but what role does the activist, rich and powerful Chinese Communist Party play in explaining this?  There are two different views on this subject.  Milton Friedman would argue that China's economy would be growing even faster if the CCP allowed the invisible hand to operate and didn't play political favorites.   This is the political misallocation hypothesis that I will return to below.

The NY Times has published an interesting piece about the rise of Chinese Tech companies.   For decades, China was known to "borrow" Western technology but now this large nation is becoming a producer of intellectual property and I have argued that this will lead this nation to enforce intellectual property laws.

As China has invested in its own universities and sent millions of young people to study at Western Universities, the nation's stock of human capital has increased.

My term as the Chair of USC Economics starts this week.  Proper decorum suggests that I should no longer be blogging.   I've decided on a compromise path.  I will no longer write about current events or politics or my humor.   I will write about my own research and about activity at USC Economics. Of course, I will be a cheerleader for USC and readers are free to filter my slanted messages.

What needs to be said about USC Econ?   USC is a school that people love to gossip about.

Economists are much better at pointing out "Hicksian Pareto Improvements" in policy rather than pure "Pareto Improvements".   Road pricing and pollution permit pricing represent the former but are unlikely to be the latter. In Los Angeles, many poor people drive and this group would prefer to waste time stuck in traffic rather than paying $ for a toll road.