The Demand for Apartments versus Single Family Homes
In New York City, Hong Kong, Shanghai and London and Paris, rich people live in apartments. President Trump owns several apartments in Manhattan. Poor people also live in apartments.
The Substitution and Income Effects Induced by Introducing Carbon Taxes
The protests in France over raising gasoline taxes there highlights that middle class people understand that higher carbon taxes have income effects.
Will the Fossil Fuel Sector Adapt to New Climate Risks?
The New York Times published an interesting piece about how U.S energy infrastructure might be affected by climate change. At the end of the piece, there is a nuanced quote about whether the energy companies will experience large profit losses due to climate change.
The Local Consequences of Federal Mandates
Rhiannon Jerch is finishing her Ph.D. at Cornell. I serve on her dissertation committee and we have co-authored this JPUBE paper together. This blog post will discuss her job market paper.
Paul Romer's New WSJ Opinion Piece Offers Pro-Growth Tips
The 2018 Nobel Laureate (Paul Romer) has published a great opinion piece in the WSJ today. While he doesn't offer a quantitative analysis of how much extra growth we would achieve, he does deliver 3 constructive suggestions for accelerating economic growth.
Room for Improvement
The Repec rankings are out for October 2018. In the name of full disclosure, here is mine. I see that my "strength of students" puts me in the 4th percentile. I need to improve on that category. I'm happier with my score in this category. Here are my peers according to REPEC.
Do $ Incentives Matter?
Alfie Kohn has written a provocative opinion piece for the NY Times in which he argues that standard "pay for performance" incentives do not matter and often create a backlash effect.
A Climate Change Investment Strategy
Paul Sullivan has written an interesting piece that details his investment advice to help NY Times readers continue to earn a good rate of return in a world facing increased climate risk.
Spending Other People's Money or How Would Milton Friedman Help the San Francisco Homeless?
Marc Benioff throws a punch at Milton Friedman (calling him "myopic") in his interesting NY Times Opinion Piece today.
Some Intellectual Excitement at USC Economics
While the USC Football team is not playing as well as usual, things are humming along at USC Economics. On Tuesday October 23rd 2018, USC Economics will host an interesting panel focused on "
The Economist’s Perspective on the Future of Silicon Valley, AI and Innovation".
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics
I am delighted that Bill Nordhaus and Paul Romer will share the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics. A technical summary of why they have won is posted here. I am eager to see if Professor Nordhaus engages with Prof.
Known Unknowns and Machine Learning
Kevin Hartnett has written a very interesting piece about the mistakes that AI makes when evaluating the content of a computer screen image. This matters for many different scenarios such as automated vehicles.
Nuance and Communicating Academic Economics Ideas to the General Public
This piece in The Chronicle is worth reading. The physicist argues that academics have weak incentives to interact with the public. Academics respond to these incentives by writing esoteric pieces that few can read and understand.
Why Haven't Linkedin and Facebook Merged?
The New Yorker magazine has a very interesting new profile of Mark Z of Facebook. This piece reminds me of my interest in the issue that Linkedin has been able to avoid all of the recent controversy that Facebook faces. There are "firewalls" between these firms.
Riding the Bird Without a Helmet Offers a New Test of the Peltzman Effect
In West Los Angeles, young people zoom around on "the Bird". This electric scooter travels at about 10 to 15 miles per hour and is a substitute for walking, the bus or UberX.
An Economist Appears on the JumboTron at the USC vs. UNLV Football Game
Since August 2017, I have been working hard as the Chairman of USC Economics. While certain anonymous websites like to beat up on USC, the department is hiring a new cohort of really good young faculty and we are now ranked #18 on REPEC.
Amazon's Lottery for Free Copies of my Environmental and Urban Economics Book.
I'm not sure why I signed up for this but I am giving away free lottery tickets to win copies
of my Amazon Book; Fundamentals of Environmental and Urban Economics.
Facebook's Stock Price Valuation and the Selection Bias Issue
Why has Facebook's stock price fallen sharply? As I understand it, Facebook is now offering its users the right to "opt out" and not share their data. You do not have to be as sharp as Professor James Heckman to anticipate that this will cause a selection bias issue.
Some General Interest Reading in Climate Change Economics
Here are some suggested readings for those who want to learn about climate change economics. I name 3 books and one free article of mine.
Some Urban Economics Points About Labor Market Monopsony's Impact on Inequality
Labor economists are investigating the role of market power in labor markets as a rising source of income inequality. Here is a piece from the Washington Post and here is the Krueger and Posner Hamilton Project White Paper.
Nuances about Using the Supply and Demand Model in Urban Economics
The economist's model of supply and demand is pretty straightforward but in this brief post I would like to highlight a few twists that urban economics offers. These twists make urban economics a really interesting (and challenging) field. Economists are a type of detective.
Price Theory Problems Revised
I have added two more problems and a free version is available here.
Price Theory Problems
I'm going to keep marketing my free e-book. Here is the Table of Contents listing the problems I present;
1. Trade vs. Autarky
2. The Roy Model of Comparative Advantage
3. Household Economics
4. Standard Consumption Theory with a "Becker Twist"
5. The Cost of Climate Change
6.
My Free Amazon E-Book on Price Theory Problems
From June 30th 2018 until July 4th 2018, you can download a free copy of my Kindle E-Book here. These problems are meant to help students build up their intuition. A special feature of these problems is an emphasis on revealed preference and "partial identification".
USC's Masters in Economics Program is Ranked #9 in the U.S
I am not sure how these folks create their ranking but I like the fact that USC Economics has a Masters Degree that is ranked #9 in the USA. Over the last year, we have been MS STEM certified and now we are also creating a new MS degree in Spatial Economics and Data Science.