Environmental and Urban Economics

In late August 2019, I move to Johns Hopkins University to become the director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative.     After having served as the Chair of the Department of Economics at USC for the last two years,  I now have a strong understanding of how to be an effective administrator and how to work with Deans and other university leaders.

JHU doesn't want me to be a "little Dean".  JHU wants me to continue my research on urban and environmental economics. It has created an opportunity for me to play to my strength as an interdisciplinary scholar who has broad interests concerning many urban issues.   The rebooted 21CC is expected to connect the university's great scholars and students.  JHU wants my Center to engage with alumni, and urban stakeholders.

Each Sunday morning, my wife and I shop at the Beverly Hills Farmers Market.  As we tried to drive out of the parking lot, we were stuck in a huge traffic jam.  This has never happened before.  I exited the car and walked up to the traffic kiosk to find out why we were stuck in traffic.  At this kiosk, you are supposed to pay for parking or hand over your parking validation (because each driver receives 2 free hours of parking).

The NY Times has published a great opinion piece making the sensible argument that more local governments need to upzone.  One NY reader posted the following comment.

"IN THEORY Increasing the density of homes sounds good. My wife and I, before starting our family, lived in a beautiful old building in a time-warp-of-the-60s neighborhood that's still a time warp. The apartment was huge, luxurious and the rent cheap.

Back in 2006, James Heckman and co-authors published an important paper on essential heterogeneity in empirical economics.  A key idea they convey is to consider a case where people opt in to take a treatment such as attending college.  In their model,  people know what they as individuals will gain from going to college.  The econometrician seeks to estimate the empirical distribution of these gains.