Environmental Economics

Environmental Economics, Experimental Methods: Table of Contents

As Tom mentions, Routledge doesn't seem to want to reveal the full table of contents of Todd et al.'s new experimental/environmental economics book. This seems odd ... you definitely want to view the guts of the book before you pay $190 for it.

Anyway, thanks to my close proximity to Todd Cherry (office numbers 3094 and 3095), I was able to secure a PDF of the front matter this morning [there is a joke somewhere in there about friends in low places (use the comments section)].

Download contents.pdf

Guest Book Reviewer*

Thanks to Martin Heintzelman for scoring a free book from us (via RFF), reading it and writing a review for this blog! That's Martin on the right (don't put your picture on your webpage if you don't want us to steal the image ;->), an assistant professor at Clarkson University in NY. Martin earned his PhD in Economics from Michigan, arch-rival of The Ohio State U., and his undergraduate degree from Duke University, arch-rival of UK (basketball only, we have pity on their football team). If we'd known his alma maters beforehand, he wouldn't've gotten the free book :-<

Update: Martin, we'll give you a www.env-econ.net hat (whenever we get them made!) if you put the review on your vita!

*Another Update: Did Martin review our guest book? or is he a guest contributor, reviewing a book?

Book Review

Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan, Richard D. Morgenstern and William A. Pizer, editors, 2006.

Martin D. Heintzelman
Assistant Professor
Clarkson University

I'm a winner!

From the inbox:

Thank you for participating in the RFF web redesign survey. I am pleased to inform you that you’ve been chosen in our drawing for a free RFF Press book. To redeem your prize, send your mailing address and choice of a recently published book from the list below to *****@rff.org. Please provide a 1st and 2nd choice. Since the drawing used email addresses only, please include your name as well. Thanks again and congratulations!

Awesome. I needed some good news after a week of blog commenters dogging my sorry ass to death. Here are my choices:

1. Emissions Trading: Principles and Practice, Second Edition, T.H. Tietenberg
2. The RFF Reader in Environmental and Resource Policy, Second Edition, Wallace E. Oates, editor

Book review: "Scarcity and Growth Revisited"

Scarcity and Growth Revisited, edited by R. David Simpson, Michael A. Toman, and Robert U. Ayres.

As an armchair observer and occasional user of economics, particularly environmental economics, it's always struck me that scarcity is a bit of an odd duck. It's central to everything I learned in graduate-level introductory economics. In public discussions, though, people coming from an avowed economics perspective often seem to downplay the importance of scarce resources, focusing instead on the ability of people and firms in a free market to innovate themselves away from dire scarcity.

This Moment on Earth : A Premature Book Review

Earlier this week I was sent an an advanced copy of John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry's new book This Moment on Earth for review.  The book is due for release on March 26, so I think the intent was for me to read this and review it before it is released.  Unfortunately I am an amazingly slow reader and the release of the book conflicts with finals week, so it's unlikely I will have a chance to read the whole thing before then.  Instead, I'm going to offer a thoroughly premature review based on my reading of the jacket, the introduction and the first chapter.  As I read the rest, I'll update.

50% off RFF books

I'm passing on an email:

Greetings from RFF Press!

In celebration of Earth Day, we are pleased to announce a promotional discount of 50% off our books, valid from March 1 - April 15.

Please use the special discount code, EDA, while shopping online at www.rffpress.org.  You may also order via phone – (410)516-6965 or 1-800-537-5487, by faxing our order form to (410)516-6998, or through e-mail at rffpress@ff.org.

Thank you, and happy Earth Day!

Please note: a 50% discount pushes you down your demand curve ... so you ought to buy a book.

Undercover Economist: My review (finally)

I read Undercover Economist awhile back and am just now getting around to writing a review because ... heads up to Tim ... I've been so, sniff, busy, sniff.

Here is what I said back in December when I added it to my holiday gift list:

I just sent a head's up to my spouse that I'd like to receive Undercover Economist by Tim Harford as a gift someday (it's late for X-iday but my birth-i-day is coming up). This is in spite of one of the NYTimes reviewer's few complaints (Exposing the economics ...):

... In fact, lively presentation aside, he has written a pretty standard primer, one that defends free markets to a fault and attacks government as the source of just about everything bad.

Predictably, he says that the best way to limit pollution is through free-market incentives; he then goes overboard by suggesting that environmental debates are mere "moral posturing."

I really should read the book before I offer a comment (shouldn't I?), but, here goes ... free market environmentalism doesn't work ALL of the time!

I just sent a head's up to my spouse that I'd like to receive Undercover Economist by Tim Harford as a gift someday (it's late for X-iday but my birth-i-day is coming up). This is in spite of one of the NYTimes reviewer's few complaints (Exposing the economics ...):

... In fact, lively presentation aside, he has written a pretty standard primer, one that defends free markets to a fault and attacks government as the source of just about everything bad.

Predictably, he says that the best way to limit pollution is through free-market incentives; he then goes overboard by suggesting that environmental debates are mere "moral posturing."

I really should read the book before I offer a comment (shouldn't I?), but, here goes ... free market environmentalism doesn't work ALL of the time!

Book Review

How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, ed. by Bjorn Lomborg

$50 billion is 0.2% of the sum of annual U.S. and E.U. GDP. To put that in perspective, 0.2% of a $50,000 income is $100.* If you had $50,000 and you wanted to make the world a better place, why would you limit yourself to $100? Kinda stingy, I think, especially if the money that you're spending is play money (i.e., pretend).

That said, this book is the result of a fantastic idea: assemble the world's best economists, bring in a bunch of other great economists to present the results of benefit-cost analyses of incredibly important problems, have the best economists rank the solutions to the problems from top to bottom in terms of their efficiency and then draw the line at ... an arbitrarily low budget.

Book Review

Emissions Trading: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition, by T. H. Tietenberg

Enjoy this book review by Josh Markle ... (thanks Josh!):

Josh Markle is a graduate student in economics, a freelance writer, and a daily Env-Econ reader residing in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He has recently re-entered the blogosphere (joshmarkle.typepad.com/blog) and is happy to entertain any of your comments and questions either there or through email (jrmarkle@ucalgary.ca).