Environmental and Urban Economics

The March 2019 JEL has published a review of my co-authored (joint with Siqi Zheng of MIT) 2016 Princeton Press book: Blue Skies Over Beijing: Economic Growth and the Environment in China.  The book and its first chapter can be found here.

Our book asks big questions;

1.  Why did China become so polluted?

2.  Why do Chinese urbanites increasingly demand "blue skies"?

3.  In the distinctive Chinese Communist System, do local and national officials have incentives to respond to the growing desire for blue skies?

4.  How do China's different cities compete against each other for jobs and people?

5.

While city quality of life has soared in recent years, everyone recognizes that traffic congestion in major cities continues to be a major problem.  While many are deeply concerned about climate change, we have not implemented a carbon tax. While many are concerned about the challenge of building new housing in productive cities, we have not changed local land use rules that create the NIMBY effect and discourage new construction.