Environmental Economics

I am sooooooooooooooo funny

From the inbox:

Good luck with the new semester and I hope your students enjoy all of your jokes about Levi [sic] jeans and trying heroin for the first time.

Before you blow a fuse you've got to realize that when you are teaching you can't rely on your own boring life experiences, because that is boring. Sometimes you need to tell stories to get the students' attention. So, sometimes I resort to describing the time that I went and bought some Levi's jeans (a hypothetical situation, of course).

Now I don't feel so bad about being such a carbon permit auction/tax deficit hawk

Mr. Orszag told The Wall Street Journal that the "unusual situation" the government finds itself in—with other countries willing to finance U.S. debt at low rates—"won't last." And, he added, "when it flips, the question is how do you get ahead of that to avoid the downward spiral" of rising interest rates, a plunging dollar and a sinking economy.

...

In a 2004 paper with Brookings economist William Gale, Mr. Orszag suggested tackling the deficit through a tax on carbon emissions and a value-added tax—a sales tax levied on all retail and wholesale transactions.

via online.wsj.com

I always feel stupid for not buying into Ricardian equivalence. At least there is at least one top-level economist who believes in crowding out.

The impact of a Walker College ECON blog

A recent study of economic bloggers concluded that a Walker College blog has an impact in the blogosphere. Environmental Economics is maintained by Dr. John Whitehead, chairman of the Department of Economics. He primarily blogs about environmental issues from an economic perspective.

According to Blogometrics, “There are some interesting economics blogs among the second tier of the top portion ranked in Table 2. For instance, a blog devoted to the economics of the environment — Environmental Economics — comes in at 17th.”

That is 17th among “top economics blogs by scholarly impact of contributors.” Also, the report ranks the blog 22nd among “top economics bloggers by scholarly impact.”

via www.business.appstate.edu

While there are some flaws in "Blogometrics," I'm not going to refuse to repost some good local publicity!

Note: the flaws are it contains only a small sample of economics blogs (moving ours up the rankings) and it doesn't count Tim's citations, which are greater than mine (moving our blog down the rankings).

Podunk U.

From the inbox:

I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for renewing your University Membership in AERE. As you know, the support of our university members is critical to the mission and health of AERE. We really appreciate your willingness to continue to help in this way.

My reply:

Thanks, we are proud to be the most podunk AERE university member!

More journal rankings

Klaus Ritzberger* gives journals grades. Econometrica, QJE, JPE, AER and 6 others get an A+ ("top journals"), REStat, JLE, IER and 12 others get As ("excellent journals"). The first environmental economics journal, JEEM, shows up near the top of the B list ("good journals"). Here are all of the journals that environmental economists might consider submitting papers (excluding general interest journals):

• B ("good journals"): Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
• C+ ("solid journals"): Resource and Energy Economics, Energy Journal, Land Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics
• C ("minor journals"): Environmental and Resource Economics, Ecological Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics

I'm proud to say that I've had a paper rejected from all but one of these journals. That lone lucky journal has not yet received a submission.

*Klaus Ritzberger, "A ranking of journals in economics and related fields," German Economic Review 9(4):402-430, 2008 [pdf].

Hat tip: WW

About.com on theoretical economics

Unlike most economists, I tend to use 'theory paper' in a pejorative sense, because too many theory papers:

1. Make assumptions that cannot possibly be true and are not reasonable simplifications of the 'real world'.
   
   
2. Are non-falsifiable, do not make predictions, or have so many free parameters they can be used to predict anything.

You need to know this math in order to be able to publish 'theory papers'. The larger question should be, "why does the economics profession put any value on this work?"

via economics.about.com

I was pretty sure what it meant but I looked up pejorative anyway.

I've only tried to write one theory paper and the referees said that there wasn't enough theory to publish without an empirical test (i.e., the calculus 1 level math wasn't obscure enough). I did the test and all was good.

I'm now willing to declare the recession over

The economy grew at a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the quickest pace in more than six years, as businesses reduced inventories less aggressively, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

via finance.yahoo.com

A new kind of eco-terrorist

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He says the world should "stop consuming American products" and "refrain from using the dollar," according to a transcript on Al-Jazeera's Web site.

The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

via apnews.myway.com

A pet peeve about sports statistics

Bush is not really a running back. Bush's heroics at USC overshadowed this, but in his last two years at USC, Bush only carried the ball 343 times. His teammate LenDale White had 400 carries. Even if you count receptions, White still had more offensive touches than Bush did.

In the epic 2006 Rose Bowl against Texas, when USC went for it on fourth-and-two from the Texas 45 to try to seal a win, Bush wasn't even on the field. White got ball (and only got a yard). In the game, White ran the ball 20 times and Bush only ran it 13.

via sportsillustrated.cnn.com

Sports reporters make big deals about small differences in numbers. USC played about 24 games over those 2 years so the average number of carries for Bush and White are 14 and 17. So White carried the ball an average of once more a quarter for 3/4s of the game than Bush. I'd still call Reggie Bush a running back.

And in the second paragraph we see how sports reporters love to generalize over a single game (or even moment). If a guy carries the ball 13 times during a game then he is a running back. He might be second string, but he is still a running back.

I predict a fall in the rankings for JEEM

After sitting and staring at the ocean from a nearby path, I now understand why Brad Pitt and friends seek to sit stoned and tranquil and just watch the ocean from dawn to dusk.

via greeneconomics.blogspot.com

It's been a trip reading Matt Kahn's (newest AE at JEEM) discovery of amenities over the past few years!