Environmental Economics

I'm in DC!

I guess he really is a math whiz

A California university professor has been charged with peeing on a colleague's campus office door.

Prosecutors charged 43-year-old Tihomir Petrov, a math professor at California State University, Northridge, with two misdemeanor counts of urinating in a public place. Arraignment is scheduled Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in San Fernando.

via www.sfgate.com

There may be a reason you can't find it anywhere ;-)

From the inbox:

I'm a PhD student at [university] working on some water quality stuff. I'm trying to find the paper you authored with [co-author] in [journal] in [year] on the economic benefits of improved water quality. I can't find it anywhere.

Would you mind pointing me in the right direction or, failing that, sending me a copy of the paper?

My reply:

I used to have a hard copy of that journal issue but it has been lost after several office moves. I may still have a hard copy of the paper itself but it is buried and may take some time to unearth. Do you really need it? It wasn't a very innovative paper even at the time of publication. Its main contribution was an interesting application for a new journal. I doubt if you would learn much from it (i.e., there may be a reason you can't find it anywhere ;-).

Daily Demand and Supply

Please discuss, while I shake my head in a mix of embarrassment and disgust after reading the first paragraph:

Pop quiz hot shot!  You’ve lost 90+ games for eight of the past ten years and your 2010 attendance was the lowest since you moved to your fancy new ballpark back in 1992. It’s time to set ticket prices for the coming year. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?!

For the first time since after the 2006 season, the Orioles are raising single-game ticket prices at Camden Yards. All tickets for individual games will increase — except for the cheapest, left-field, upper reserve seats which will remain at $8 and $9 — with the hikes ranging from $1 to $8 extra depending on the game desired and when the tickets are purchased. The average single-game ticket will go up $3 in 2011.

We had a garage sale once and it took me an hour to figure out how to price slightly-worn baby clothes, so I’m the last guy who can say the Orioles’ bean counters are cutting their own throats with this kind of move. When you have a zillion different price points for a zillion different types of tickets, quality of opponents, etc., making a supply and demand graph is a rather complicated proposition. As such, we can’t sit here and say that this is a dumb financial move for the Orioles. There are many moving parts, and it may very well be that this increase makes economic sense for the team no matter how much people grouse about it.

That said: people gonna be mad.

via hardballtalk.nbcsports.com

Daily demand and supply

My eyebrows are currently at my hairline:

With over a month before Ron White makes his way to the High Country for his raucous brand of humor, there are eyebrows raised—not over the fact that the show is a sell-out, but that the show, as a sell-out, is still slated for the 1700-seat Farthing Auditorium and not the nearly 9000-seat Holmes Convocation Center.

Articles in the ASU student newspaper raise the issue as ticket demand is so high for the show—tickets are listed as ‘low’ as $154 on the stubhub site, giving some idea about demand in the secondary market, but so far, there is no word of any venue change for the February 27th show.

via www.goblueridge.net

Another cap-and-trade casualty

From the WSJ:

Carol Browner is leaving her position as White House "energy czar," and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether, according to Democrats familiar with events.

The czar position, and Ms. Browner herself, have been lightning rods for critics of the president's environmental-policy agenda and a reassurance to its supporters, who liked having a top official in the White House devoted to their priorities.

...

Ms. Browner led the administration's effort to gather votes in Congress for legislation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. The effort unraveled in the Senate last year, amid opposition from Republicans and some Democrats fearful of its impact on energy prices and jobs.

...

Eliminating Ms. Browner's position would be another signal that the White House is giving up the effort.

The first member of the Pigou club?

Go ahead, print this one out and read it on the plane:

William J. Baumol, On the Increasing Role of Economic Research in Management of Resources and Protection of the Environment, Annual Review of Resource Economics
Vol. 2:1-11, October 2010; DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-040709-135059.

Here is an introduction:

In this second volume, the open prefatory chapter by William Baumol should not be missed. No other economist has made contributions that have touched as many areas in economic analysis, spanning all the way from the arts to the environment. Generations of environmental economists have learned and taught the basic concepts of environmental economics from Professor Baumol’s classic book, The Theory of Environmental Policy (with Wally Oates*). In his prefatory chapter, he not only provides an insider’s view of how the field of environmental economics emerged, but also reflects on his more recent unpublished contributions accounting for the cumulative and rapid rise in the real cost of health care, education, and performing arts activities and the resulting consequences on the environment.

The chapter begins with this "I was born and grew up in New York City ..." and includes several gems, including a table of "past petroleum prophecies (and realities)" and footnote 1:

It may amuse the reader to know that, on the one occasion when I attended a lecture by Pigou, I was delighted to hear him describe himself as an ancient octopus who had not yet ceased omitting streams of ink. No doubt the observation applies equally to the present author.

Finally, in case you were wondering:

The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

*Note: Wally Oates gave the AERE Fellows talk at the AERE Luncheon during the ASSA meetings in Denver. It was titled something like "the early days of environmental economics." Cool stuff.

Peak oil: 1866-1949

Source: William J. Baumol, On the Increasing Role of Economic Research in Management of Resources and Protection of the Environment, Annual Review of Resource Economics
Vol. 2:1-11, October 2010; DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-040709-135059.

With friends like these ...

In response to my bison post a "friend" tells me this about a dinner that Tim and I missed at the ASSA meetings due to a prior committment:

I don’t think I mentioned the menu for the ... dinner—4 courses, including the bison filet, “Colorado Bison Rossini” on the menu. Huge, medium rare, could cut it with a fork. Maybe the best red meat I’ve ever eaten.

I think they are underestimating the impact of the Env-Econ Drive Less!* Campaign

Last time, I showed you evidence (courtesy of Robert Puentes and Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institution and Adam Millard-Ball and Lee Schipper of Stanford University) that driving per person seems to have peaked in the 2000s and now may even be dropping. This bucks every travel trend we’ve seen since Henry Ford got to work. What might be slowing down the acceleration in driving?

Are higher fuel prices to blame? Perhaps in part. There is some debate on the magnitude of the effect gas prices have on fuel consumption, but luckily you don’t have to throw out your basic economics textbook; people do drive less when the price of driving rises. A fairly recent study by economists Kenneth Small and Kurt van Dender found that a 10 percent increase in gas prices leads to a 0.2. to 0.3 percent reduction in driving in the short run, and an eventual reduction of 1.1 to 1.5 percent.

via freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

*For our unfaithful readers unfamiliar with Drive Less!, click on our Insider's Guide, scroll down to Drive Less! and enjoy.