Environmental Economics

"The Stern Review and Its Critics" symposium at REEP

I received an email on April 23 announcing free advance access of REEP content between April 9 and April 23:

Review of Environmental Economics and Policy Advance Access articles have been made available (for the period 9 Apr 2008 to 23 Apr 2008)

It is my opinion, but that might just be me, that it would be much more useful if I received the email on April 9. I'm an AERE member so I get the full text but what is the point of sending the email on April 23?

More lawn news

Continuing on the theme John established for the day:

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. was ordered yesterday to stop selling and using products that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said contain two "illegal and unregistered" herbicides.

The Marysville-based lawn and garden company said yesterday that it agreed to a national recall of products containing these herbicides. They were used in a commercial fertilizer and in a consumer product sold under the name "Miracle-Gro Shake 'n' Feed With Weed Preventer All Purpose Plant Food."

Why do I care?  Marysville, Ohio is the town next to Dublin, Ohio, the suburbanly sprawled city I call home.  Scotts is a major employer in the area.  Dublin's slogan is "It's Greener in Dublin."  How are we going to stay greener without fertilizer?

The high cost of mowing lawns

In 2006 it cost $35 to have my lawn mowed. Due to higher gas prices it cost $40 in 2007. I paid the lawn maintenance firm $40 this morning and received the unpleasant news that due to high gas prices, the cost will likely rise in 2008.

It's spring. It must be time to declare all politicians idiots again.

The inevitability of spring.  Flowers bloom.  Thunderstorms roll.  I sneeze.  Gas prices rise.  And politicians think they should do something about it.

House Republican leaders on Tuesday challenged Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to release a plan to lower gas prices that they say Democrats touted when they were in the minority.

Instead of rewriting past posts, I'm going to just cut and paste my post from May 17 of last year below(one of my better, if I do say so myself).  That post draws on the same ideas from a post in April/May 2006.  Noticing a pattern?  While the legislative proposals are different, the analysis is the same.  All politicians are idiots. 

Quote of the day

For all the physical and life scientists who think they know more economics than economists ... and all the economists who think they know more [X] than [X]-ologists:

The general rule to remember is that if some discipline seems less developed than your own, it’s probably not because the researchers aren’t as smart as you are, it’s because the subject is harder.

-- Paul Krugman

How I spent my Earth Day

From the inbox:

The annual Earth Day celebration is taking place today, 4/22, on Sanford Mall from 11am-3pm. Come check out over 20 informational tables & displays, enjoy the free food & giveaways (canvas bags & more), and re-commit to what you can do to help lessen the impact we have on the Earth.

I'm wearing a "Stop Mountaintop Removal" button and I enjoyed a free bean burrito.

The failure of U.S. ethanol policy

Sometimes ecological economists sound like real economists*.  That is, every once in a while they make sense.  From Lester Brown and Jonathan Lewis in today's Washington Post:

Taking these together -- the environmental damage, the human pain of food price inflation, the failure to reduce our dependence on oil -- it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that food-to-fuel mandates have failed. Congress took a big chance on biofuels that, unfortunately, has not worked out. Now, in the spirit of progress, let us learn the appropriate lessons from this setback, and let us act quickly to mitigate the damage and set upon a new course that holds greater promise for meeting the challenges ahead.

Happy Earth Day.

*Relax, I'm joking.

Economics blog reader survey results

From Aaron Schiff at 26econ.com:

The survey that John Whitehead and I did of econ blog readers has finished and produced some interesting results. Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to do the survey. In total we got 387 responses. Here’s a summary of the basic responses to each question ...

Earth Day Book sale at RFF Press

In celebration of Earth Day, RFF Press is offering an opportunity to purchase RFF books at a significant discount. We are offering hundreds of titles that represent some of the best works of scholarship in areas concerning the study of natural resources and the environment -- books that provide analysis of critical issues concerning pollution control, energy policy, land and water use, climate change, and much more.

We invite you to take advantage this offer by visiting our website at www.rffpress.org. Browse our titles, make your selection, and take advantage of the 40%-off savings by using our special discount code GXX when you order online.

Visit today. This Earth Day Sale opportunity expires May 22nd, 2008.

On the publication of Oxoby's AC/DC paper

ON THE EFFICIENCY OF AC/DC: BON SCOTT VERSUS BRIAN JOHNSON

ROBERT J. OXOBY, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, 2500 University, Drive NW, Calgary, AB Canada T2N1N4. Phone 403 220 2586, Fax 403 282 5262, E-mail [email protected]

We thank Steven Levitt for his support and popularization of this research (see, for example, Levitt, 2007). We thank Nathan Berg, Gary Charness, Bill Harbaugh, and Kendra McLeish for valuable suggestions and comments. We also thank a delayed Air Canada flight and a bar in the Vancouver airport for providing the time, space, and resources necessary to pursue this research. All errors are attributable to Air Canada.

Abstract: We use tools from experimental economics to address the age-old debate regarding who was a better singer in the band AC/DC. Our results suggest that (using wealth maximization as a measure of "better") listening to Brian Johnson (relative to listening to Bon Scott) resulted in "better" outcomes in an ultimatum game. These results may have important implications for settling drunken music debates and environmental design issues in organizations. (JEL C7, C9, D6, Z1)