Environmental Economics

Valuing Bag Limits in the NC Charter Boat Fishery (working paper #11-08)

Link: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/aplwpaper/11-08.htm

My dream job is trumpet player for Cake

First, I need to learn to play the trumpet:

Over all, the new standards will require a 54.5 miles per gallon corporate average for 2025. That standard will be made more easily achievable by credits that automakers can earn by producing battery-powered vehicles, hybrids and alternative-fuel models. Details of how the credits will work have not yet been made public, but the intention is to encourage the development of cars with far lower emissions. ...

The automakers are confident that they can achieve incremental goals each year, but the real test will be if costs can be lowered enough so consumers will want to buy more electric and hybrid models.

via www.nytimes.com

So, if the price of cars rise will consumers be more amenable to higher gas prices as an alternative?

 

money hugger: Urban Word of the Day

From the inbox:

July 29: money hugger

Opposite of tree hugger. Unscrupulous, money hungry, money collecting individual or company willing to do anything and destroy anything on this planet to get their fix - more money.

I don't care about your environmental impact or the old tree growth, and that frog is not worth those millions I can make here, said the money hugger.

The importance of this post should be clear: An environmental economist is somewhere in between a tree hugger and a money hugger. Indeed, I'd love to test the assertion about the value of the frog.

The professor and the policy maker

Source: vk34msu

My first xtranormal movie

If this doesn't make you want to buy the book then I don't know what will.

Preference Data for Environmental Valuation
by: ecwhiteh

Note: my first email address as a professional economist was [email protected] (or something like that).

So you want a PhD in economics?

A (former) friend introduced me to xtranormal. I say former because I definitely don't have time for this (and he knew it which is why he brought it up ... evil)! ... which means I'm trying not to get hooked ... trying not to get tempted to try it out ... I searched YouTube for "xtranormal economics" and found this one. In case you haven't seen it:

An undergrad wants to go to grad school in economics and seeks advice from a current grad student.

As a (tangentially) climate (social) scientist, I'm highly offended

Nation's Climatologists Exhibiting Strange Behavior (Season 1: Ep 5 on IFC)

Nonsense like this isn't furthering our nation's debt negotations

Sometimes the lack of economic literacy creates real problems. For example, Cory Matthews has five theories why Netflix raised their prices:

This week Netflix announced changes in their pricing plans, charging $16 a month for unlimited streaming and one DVD at a time, up from 10 bucks. When you consider that Netflix originally cost $21.99/a month, that's not so bad. And if you consider you have access to everything that was ever recorded on film, that seems like a fair deal. Nevertheless, the masses were enraged. So let's try and figure out where that money is going to. ...

1. To Fix the Nation's Budget

...

The country needs some cash. Fast. How are they gonna do that, you ask? Job creation? Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realize you were [stupid]. Obviously, we all already have jobs - where else are we sitting around streaming reruns of Newsradio and Woody Allen movies that aren't Annie Hall? So maybe Netflix is in cahoots with the government and this is step one to fixing our nation. Look, there are roughly 25 million Netflix subscribers. Let me crunch some numbers here - excuse me while I take out my abacus - that's $1.8 Billion we can put toward the economy.

via www.funnyordie.com (note: profanity alert)

Ignoring the fact that any tax increase is DOA, holding all else constant, I would predict that the number of Netflix consumers will fall off 25 million as the price rises. Let's be generous and assume that demand is as inelastic as short term petrol demand (i.e., e = 0.10) so that a 60% price increase will reduce the number of customers by 6%. With only 23.5 million customers remaining the increased revenue is still substantial, but it is $108 million lower than forecast. Given that Netflix has more substitutes than petrol, my guess is that the forecast revenue could be much lower.

It is forecasting mistakes like this that can really cause serious problems.

I'm a macro forecaster

From the inbox:

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.), July 28, 2011 – Optimism is out; pessimism is in among the country’s top economics bloggers as they look to 2012 and beyond, particularly regarding jobs. A new Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation survey released today shows that only 50 percent of respondents anticipate employment growth, a decrease of 20 percent from second quarter.

Fully 95 percent of respondents view current economic conditions as “mixed” or “facing recession,” an increase of 10 percent from second quarter, and a third predict a double-dip recession during 2012. “Uncertain” is once again the top adjective economics bloggers use to describe the economy, and respondents shared expectations of higher annual deficits and the top marginal tax rate. ...

As the debt controversy continues on Capitol Hill, the consensus of economics bloggers was strong, but neither conventionally liberal nor conservative.  More than half support raising the U.S. debt limit without conditions. But a strong majority – 88 percent – also favors the idea of a requirement for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to account long-term liabilities in its budget assessment.

When asked to evaluate the 2009 stimulus, 77 percent of economics bloggers believe that it had a neutral or negative effect. Looking forward, when asked how fiscal balance should be achieved, respondents favored a mix weighted toward spending cuts rather than tax increases. ...

For this Kauffman Economic Outlook: A Quarterly Survey of Leading Economics Bloggers (www.kauffman.org/outlook), the Kauffman Foundation sent invitations to more than 200 leading economics bloggers as identified in the Palgrave’s econolog.net December 2010 rankings. The Foundation surveys the bloggers each quarter about their views of the economy, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Picture of the day

Can you see the white line in the shadow of the Lexus?