That is the title of my talk at the "Tips for Students and Newish Economists" panel at the AERE@SEA meetings. Note that I am defining consulting very broadly. Here is my preliminary outline:
I've been asked to make sure I emphasize that consulting is not something you do instead of your regular job. Done (see the costs of the #4 type of consulting). Any other comments and suggestions are welcome!
Hello,
John Whitehead is happy to report that he is no longer a part-time academic administrator (i.e., Economics Department Chair). If your email is regarding department business, please redirect it to our new chair Todd Cherry at cherrytl at appstate.edu.
John Whitehead is also happy to report that he is on Off-Campus Scholarly Assignment (i.e., sabbatical) in Fall 2017 and back to teaching, research and service in Spring 2018. If your email is about non-department business, he'll reply ASAP (or maybe not).
Thanks,
John Whitehead
P.S. For the remainder of his academic career, John Whitehead will refer to himself in the third person.
Doug Webber:
The rapid increase in the cost of college in recent decades — and the associated explosion in student debt, which now totals nearly $1.3 trillion nationally — is all too familiar to many Americans. But few understand what has caused the tuition boom, particularly at the public institutions that enroll roughly two-thirds of all students at four-year colleges. Many commenters, particularly in the popular press, focus on ballooning administrative budgets and extravagant student amenities. Those elements have played a role, to be sure, but by far the single biggest driver of rising tuitions for public colleges has been declining state funding for higher education.
It is true that today’s students enjoy better amenities .... It is also true that today’s universities employ far more administrators and staff who don’t have any direct role in either research or instruction. ...
And it is also true that professors (at least those on the tenure track) are paid better than the people who held those same jobs years ago. ...
All of those trends add to the cost of college, but not by that much. At most, about a quarter of the increase in college tuition since 2000 can be attributed to rising faculty salaries, improved amenities and administrative bloat. By comparison, the decline in state support accounts for about three-quarters of the rising cost of college.
Hat tip: PAG
Here is the data for the states with the biggest funding decrease per student (all of the states are in the article):
The "three-quarters" number is close to the unconditional mean of the share of tuition hike explained by cuts (mean = 82) which is the logic that I think is being used by 538. The share of tuition hike column is the negative of state funding per student divided by the increase in tuition.
Another way to think about the data is with a linear regression (my SPSS output is below). A model of the increase in tuition (dT) as a function of the change in state funding per student (dS) holding starting tuition constant (T0 = current tuition - increase in tuition) is:
dT = 1.357 - 0.248*dS + 0.313*T0
This model tells us that the increase in tuition rises $248 for each $1000 dollar decrease in state funding per student and states with higher tuition before 2000 tend to raise tuition more than states with lower tuition. The R-squared is 0.47 which tells us that 47% of the variation in the tuition increase is due to variation in changes in state funding per student and starting tuition. A regression model with only the change in state funding per student included has an R-square of 0.304.
So, I think that decreases in state funding explain about 25% (using the regression coefficient) or 30% (using the R-squared) of the increase in tuition instead of "three-fourths."
Laura Grant asks:
@willwheels can you tell me more about this #hr4012 "secret science" bill and how it might affect @EPA?
— Laura Grant (@c0ntributary) November 21, 2014
Sure!
Before I start, I should mention that while I am free to express personal opinions as long as I put in the disclaimer below, this is awfully close to stuff I work on. So, I'm going to go with the interpretation of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in their cost estimate of the bill, which would:
prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating a “covered action” unless all scientific and technical information used to support that action is publicly available in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results. Covered actions would include assessments of risks, exposure, or hazards; documents specifying criteria, guidance, standards, or limitations; or regulations and regulatory impact statements.
According to the CBO, EPA relies on 50,000 scientific studies each year and would have to incur costs to make each study available. CBO "expects that EPA would modify its practices, at least to some extent, and would base its future work on fewer scientific studies, and especially those studies that have easily accessible or transparent data." This makes sense, some studies would not be able to be made publicly available at any cost (e.g., PACE or other confidential Census data; or many health studies that rely on personal medical data) while others would be very costly to make available. They assume that EPA would cut the relied-upon number of studies by about half--focusing on using the least costly studies to make available--and spend $250 million a year initially, although this cost would decline over time as EPA gets more efficient. The costs could go up or down (perhaps nonlinearly) if EPA decided to rely on more or fewer studies than CBO's central estimate, and of course the quality of the resulting analysess could go down if EPA has to rely on fewer studies to reach scientific conclusions.
One example, in particular, to consider is the use of the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) data, which is generally considered to be superior for calculating the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) (e.g., Viscusi 2012) because the CFOI data are a census and allow for detailed category refinements. However, every study I'm aware of that uses CFOI data to calculate a VSL does so under a confidentiality agreement, so it's not clear to me that any CFOI studies could be used in an EPA RIA if this act were to pass.
This work is not a product of the United States Government or the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the author is not doing this work in any governmental capacity. The views expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the United States or the US EPA.
David Zetland:
I got this email:
As a student studying environmental engineering, I'm curious to know what exactly is the role of an environmental economist? Does he add any value to onfield projects and what are the research opportunities available?
Let me answer with a few points:
- An economist is good at weighing costs and benefits.
- A good economist can also consider who gets the costs and who gets the benefits.
- The environment creates benefits that are hard to quantify; economic activities can have environmental costs that are significant. An environmental economist can help you understand these BEFORE you even begin field work, as well as integrate them into choices made in the field ("gee, maybe you shouldn't release that tailwater into the river; people downstream don't like to drink pollution.")
- There are many research opportunities, since engineers are not trained in talking to people about preferences, choices, tradeoffs and willingness to pay.
Can you add more?
I'll answer Aguanomics post title question with a question: Because economists are (slightly) less arrogant than engineers?
A North Carolina university and a major technology company are tangled up in a court battle over which one of them has the right to turn an existential statement into a dull marketing slogan.
According to Reuters, East Carolina University is suing Cisco Systems Inc. over the company’s use of what the university says is its registered trademark, “Tomorrow Starts Here,” a phrase that plays prominently in the company’s new marketing campaign. ...
Steven C. Ballard, the university’s chancellor, said in a written statement on the university’s Web site that the slogan was nothing new for his university. He noted that the institution had been using it “for over a decade,” including in major advertisements. The university’s lawsuit seeks injunctive relief and damages, according to the statement.A company spokeswoman told Reuters that the lawsuit was a surprise, adding that Cisco was “confident” that its campaign “does not create any confusion in the marketplace.”
via chronicle.com
I often confuse the beast of the east and all vegetable shortening.
I just received an email from the ASUFACULTY-STAFF-INFO listserv from the Office of General Education inviting me to a reception honoring some recent award winners. I wish the subject line had read:
Here is how they explain the problem at Yahoo!
A good way to remember this is to realize that YOU'RE is short for "You are" (i.e. "You are invited"). The apostrophe (') replaces the "A" in "ARE". Other versions of this type of word are: I'm . . . he's . . . she's . . . we're . . . they're . . .
YOUR is just a possessive pronoun, the opposite of MY. For example, "I like your shoes" "Is it your birthday?" YOUR only relates to things that belong to someone.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
In a story on baseball "quirkologists" (Baseball veers into left field), Ernest Abel, a professor of medicine, whom I'd never heard of:
Prof. Abel, who has written books on a wide range of topics, including graffiti, genetic disorders and “Marihuana: the First Twelve Thousand Years,” says names, initials and death just intrigue him.
“I do a lot of reading,” he says, “and like to speculate on a lot of different aspects of behavior.” Baseball, Prof. Abel points out, is not only a good place for data, it’s also more interesting than doing a study on, say, academics. “What kind of kid grows up and wants to be an economist?” he says.
Is that some sort of insult?
There are thousands of kids who grew up and wanted to be economists and these kids come in all shapes and sizes. Some of these kids are male, some are female. Some drink, some don't. Some are religious, some aren't. Most are a little more geeky than the average person (i.e., they like math, computers) . One reason is that being an economist is a relatively good job. Some of these economists agree with Prof. Abel and do research on the sports industry. However, some of them don't even like sports and choose to do research on other important, and interesting, topics. The broadest of these topics is improving our understanding of human behavior with an ultimate goal of making society better off in some small way (i.e., inquiries into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations).
That, sir, is the type of kid that grows up and wants to be an economist.
I realized recently that we haven't been getting questions submitted to the never dull Answer Desk. When I checked the Answer Desk link to the left I noticed that the time limit had expired for comments on the link and there was no place to submit a question. Knowing that there are millions* of you out there with pressing questions that only we can answer, I asked John if he could think of a solution (as you all know, he's the real brains behind this operation). Anyway, as usual, he asked 'how high?' when I asked him to jump and the link is fixed.
So the Env-Econ Answer Desk is open for business again**. Tell your friends, classmates, parents, in-laws. No question is off-limits and no question too stupid (but keep in mind the answers may be stupid). Ask away.
*or one
**Really I've been lacking in post ideas lately and I'm looking for you to save me before the*** Hammer of John comes down on me for being an anchor around his neck.
***Mixed metaphor warning.