Environmental Economics

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Knowledge Problem on gender and economics blogging

I told Lynne in November that I'd like to read more cycling posts:

So perhaps it’s not just the division of labor in the household, but perhaps there’s a gender difference in terms of breadth and variety of interests, and interest in focusing intently on one thing or very few things. I spend a lot of time and energy on things that I don’t think would be interesting to KP readers; in fact, back in 2005 I distinctly remember posting a few times about cycling, running, triathlon race results, and I got an email from a reader basically saying that I should stick to economics because he wasn’t interested in reading about my sports. Fair enough. But with RSS readers, it’s easy to skip those. Still, I’ve really backed off writing here about the non-economics topics that captivate me.

Which brings up another hypothesis tangentially related to the one that Diane offered: perhaps women are more “self-censoring” than men. After receiving that feedback, I really dialed in my self-censoring, asking myself every time I read something or thought about posting something “do I have something original to add to the conversation, to economic knowledge, on this item?” Frankly, a lot of the time over the past couple of years my answer to that question has been NO, not that I’m judging myself as a non-”excellent” economist because of that. So much of the online conversation over the past couple of years has dealt with macro, finance, monetary policy, all of which are topics in which I profess no special expertise. Does that filtering and self-censoring kick in more readily for women than men? Perhaps. In my case it’s because my time is so scarce and has such a high opportunity cost — if I’m just going to write something in which I blather on a topic about which I have little expertise, I’d rather spend that time on my bike.

And env-econ is evidence that males don't self-censor. Whenever someone tells me to stick to the environmental economics I say "what? this is my blog!" and start working on my next stupid personal or sports post. Until we're picked up by the New York Times to blog alongside Krugs we'll do what we want.

Fascinated with our new webcams

Another one for John's classics shelf

Look what I got in the mail this morning.  Click the link to the left to buy a copy and help feed our children.

Life satisfaction vs contingent valuation

Daniel Hamersmesh:

Even with concepts that seem totally non-economic, market forces are crucial.  In a new paper, “Beauty Is the Promise of Happiness?”, using data from the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the U.K., my colleague Jason Abrevaya and I show that better-looking people are happier.  At least half of the impact arises because better-looking people earn more and obtain spouses who earn more.  These are market effects. The total effect of good looks is about the same for men and women; but more of the impact of beauty on happiness among men works through markets, while among women the direct effect — being good-looking per se makes women happier — is more important.

The economics profession seems keen to allow that measures of utility from life satisfaction or happiness studies are valid alternative measures of social welfare (in addition to GDP). I think this is a good idea too, simply because additional measurements that are highly correlated lend confidence to the accuracy of both measures. 

What I don't understand is the hesitation to consider contingent valuation or contingent behavior in the same way. It is rare to wander outside the field of environmental economics (and sometimes wandering around within the field) and not have someone questions your methods. The author above did this in an association lecture at the Southern Economic Association meetings a few years ago. Do happiness researchers catch the same grief?

Bruce Johnson, Brad Humphries, Dan Mason and myself are conducting a study of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. We thought it would be neat to compare willingness-to-pay derived from contingent valuation with that derived from life satisfaction questions. We have been disappointed. While the contingent valuation data passes the usual validity and reliability tests the life satisfaction data is a mess. The willingness-to-pay estimates from the life satisfaction data are unrealistic. Needless to say, that comparison paper is DOA and I'm highly skeptical of life satisfaction / happiness studies due to my own experience, not because of a revealed preference mindset.

A lesson in mutually beneficial free trade

Lynne Kiesling:

I am listening to an NPR story right now on the conflicts over the construction of the new pipeline to bring Canadian heavy crude oil from the tar sands to the US. Steve Inskeep introduced the story by observing that as Canadian tar sands production increases, US consumers will “become more dependent on Canada”.

This error is more than just a rhetorical one; it’s an error of logic and a failure of basic economic understanding, because it shows that Inskeep and his staff don’t grasp the reciprocity and the mutuality of trade and exchange. You could just as easily say that more oil transactions between US consumers and Canadian producers makes Canada “more dependent on the US”, because the revenue they earn from selling us oil is income that they use to do what they want to do in their lives, in much the same way that the oil we buy from them is a product that we use to do what we want to do in our lives.

Failing to incorporate the reciprocity and mutuality of exchange into your analysis is an all-too-common logical flaw, particularly in the increasingly breathy and Chicken Little media. They should know better.

The Dukes... ruined my life... over a bet? For how much?

A dollar. Steve Rushin:

But in sports, morality and neutrality are uncoupled. With certain exceptions: It was difficult for most Americans to remain neutral during last year's Butler vs. Duke NCAA final, which smacked -- in a purely basketball context -- of oppressed vs. oppressor. Indeed, that was the entire plot of Trading Places, a morality tale pitting one butler against two Dukes. The audience, naturally, rooted for the butler.

via sportsillustrated.cnn.com

I get the joke, but it was more than one butler against two Dukes. That summary leaves out (in alphabetical order) Dan Ackroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis and Eddie Murphy. How could you do that without a footnote?

I've been reading the crappy female economist blogs*

From climate adaptation to gender, Matt keeps stepping in it!

Diane Lim Rogers:

A friend of mine sent me a link to Matthew Kahn’s latest guest blog post on the Christian Science Monitor website; she sent it along with an “I believe in you” sort of note, because as Matthew was implicitly pointing out, I am not on the list of top economists to which he refers–while he is (as he explicitly points out).  He ponders (emphasis added):

REPEC provides an objective measure of who is “Royalty” in the economics profession. The current list of the top 5% is here. I am ranked #681 out of 27,365 economists so that’s not bad (and my 3 books aren’t counted here). But, here is the interesting part. There are 52 women who rank in the top 1000 and 0 of them blog. Contrast that with the men. Consider the top 100 men. In this elite subset; at least 8 of them blog. Consider the men ranked between 101 and 200. At least, six of them blog. So, this isn’t very scientific but we see a 7% participation rate for excellent male economists and a 0% participation rate for excellent women. This differential looks statistically significant to me. I have searched for Nancy Folbre among the top 1369 economists (the 5% cutoff) and she is not counted in the elite subset.

Not being a female economist himself, Matthew then theorizes–as men love to do–about why we women aren’t as able to be both “excellent” economists and blogging economists.

I find it ironic that Matthew’s blog post would appear on the Christian Science Monitor site in the same area that my guest blog posts do, and that the photo that goes with the CSM post is of…an Asian woman!  (Ok, a much younger Asian woman, but Asian nonetheless.)  Huh!  There’s a female economist blogger blogging right “next” to Matthew, right under his nose!

Oh, but I’m not an “excellent” female economist. ...

Keep reading ... and also check out what Jodi Beggs has to say.

Update: here is the comment I left at EDITM:

Some of my favorite bloggers are Jodi Beggs, Diane and Lynne Kiesling: http://knowledgeproblem.com/. Some  (all?) of my least favorite are those in the RePEc rankings (but I like Matt's blog). I'm not sure why there should be any correlation between RePEc rankings,  gender (other than the point made by Jodi above) and good economics blog posts. As evidence, see the Taylor, Mankiw, Thoma and Krugman interaction from today. Jeez.

*Joke!

Water closet

The best idea everyone hates (i.e., a higher tax on gasoline):

TODAY, Barack Obama unveiled the latest set of presidential proposals for reducing oil imports, strengthening the economy, and cutting emissions. Nearly everything he proposed is old hash; American leaders have been dutifully acting out this bit of theatre since the Nixon administration.

And as my colleague at Democracy in America points out, even if Mr Obama were serious about pressing for these policies, he'd face significant opposition in Congress:

Worse, those parts of the president’s plan that need congressional approval—the clean energy standard, more subsidies, extra funding for research on whizz-bang energy technology—will never receive it. The Republicans who control the House are dead-set against anything that smacks of greenery, not to mention anything that would add to spending at a time when they’re trying to take an axe to it.

Nominally, at least, both parties care about oil imports and both parties care about the deficit. They don't necessarily behave as if they care, but they say they care. Can Congress address these priorities without explicitly doing anything that's either 1) green or which 2) requires new spending?

Sure, Congress can raise the petrol tax. Just as a reminder, the chairmen of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles deficit commission  recommended that the petrol tax be increased by 15 cents per gallon beginning in 2013. For perspective: average retail petrol prices in America rose by more than that in the month of March. A higher tax rate would discourage consumption while raising money that could be used for whatever Congress wanted, including deficit reduction.

The idea isn't popular, but it makes a great deal of sense.

Robey and Phillips