Environmental Economics

A Christmas miracle?

From the Edward Elgar catalog:

In case you don't understand the joke, this volume has been forthcoming for a number of years.

I spoke with the Edward-Elgar rep at the SEA meetings. She knew exactly which book I was talking about :) and was expecting a copy to arrive on her desk this week and seemed fairly sure I would get my copy early in 2012.

Thanks to Richard for wrapping the project up!

And then there's always Chlorine as an option...

The state’s continuing effort to rid Grand Lake St. Marys of toxic blue-green algae could include testing a new chemical and devices that circulate lake water.

Those are among the recommendations in a report that Columbus-based research giant Battelle released Monday.

Battelle researchers looked at 73 proposals and technologies aimed at cleaning up the 13,000-acre western Ohio lake.

“It looks at the approaches that are most likely to address the short-term issue of keeping algae from shutting down the lake,” said Harry Stone, a senior researcher and co-author of the study.

Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are common in most Ohio lakes but grow thick in water polluted with phosphorus from manure, sewage and fertilizers that washes off with rain into streams.

Algae grew so thick in 2010 that the state warned people not to touch the water or take boats out on the lake for fear of algae-produced liver and nerve toxins. Algae and warning signs reappeared at Grand Lake beaches in June.

via www.dispatch.com

Did you buy our book yesterday?

Jason B. Jones at ProfHacker:

The micropayment site Flattr is trying to get November 29 to catch on as “Pay a Blogger Day,” both as a marketing campaign* and an effort to recognize all the free content that people contribute daily to the web. I learned about it from Ernesto Priego’s fine post at HASTAC, “I Smell Smoke”: Blogging as an Endangered Species,” which argues that the ongoing difficulty of finding a place for blogging in the academic rewards system ought to serve as a reality check for more enthusiastic proponents of online scholarship.

Priego’s primary concern is that academics will, necessarily, do what’s best for their chances of being hired, renewed, promoted, and tenured, and so may very well see their online projects as easily abandoned ...

* Instead, I want to propose today as “Buy a single from Craig Finn’s solo project day.” Or, if you like, “buy an academic blogger’s book day.” (I even have a suggestion . . . .)

The real point of the post is not to pay academic bloggers (I hope you don't mind our ads) but that blogging should be recognized as some sort of academic output (in economics, I don't think so) and blog deaths are OK (many academic projects fail [i.e., end without formal output]).

I'm going to read this after I load it on my Kindle

I took a survey

This is a follow-up to the surveys of economic opinion published in the AER twice and, most recently, the Journal of Economic Education. I have a suggestion for future surveys. Instead of three answer categories, mostly agree, agree with provisions and mostly disagree, the survey should include Likert scale answer categories such as strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree and strongly disagree. I didn't have an answer for many of the statements (i.e., macro) so I answered the middle category which forced me into agreeing. I didn't want to skip the question for fear that the researchers would drop respondents with item non-response.

The check is in the mail

When the unmeasured benefits are asserted to exceed the costs I would say no to the funding (emphasis added) ...

It could cost as much as $3.5 million to redo the 76,000-square-foot roof, said Abby Shue, executive projects director for the arts center. The green design would cover about 51,000 square feet and could add as much as $1.5 million to the cost, while saving energy, [Abby Shue, executive projects director for the arts center] said.

“They will find a significant savings over the life of the roof,” said Cash Moter, architect with the Louisville firm Joseph & Joseph, which is working on the project. Just how much savings is still being calculated, he said....

Shue said the center, which is owned by the state, will request $3.5 million in funding from the Kentucky General Assembly, which reconvenes in January. ...

[The Metropolitan Sewer District] has promised to share some of the costs because the green roof would capture at least 1.7 million gallons of storm water every year, preventing it from running into sewers and contributing to contaminated overflows into the Ohio River, said Wesley Sydnor, a senior technical services engineer at MSD.

On Nov. 14, MSD committed to spending $114,523 to help offset the costs of the project. ...

via www.courier-journal.com

... until those unmeasured benefits are quantified and shown to exceed the costs.

Urban Dictionary: Job Creator

November 27, 2011 Urban Word of the Day

Euphemism for rich person.

Wow! look at that job creator driving his aston martin to get onto his private jet so he can go to his private island!

via www.urbandictionary.com

What would you do with another $30?

House Speaker Thom Tillis said the Republican caucus will discuss whether to proceed with a gas tax cap at its meeting this morning.

The current 35-cent per-gallon tax is expected to reach about 39-cents on Jan. 1 because of higher wholesale gas prices. Some House Republicans want to put a ceiling on the tax, citing the burden to families amid the dour economy.

But doing so would cut millions of dollars targeted for road building and maintenance projects. A 4-cent reduction would save an average driver about $30 a year, according to the state department of transportation, but reduce road money by $340 million over two years.

via projects.newsobserver.com

Me? That is an additional three* 6-packs of beer during 2012. While my utility would rise, my labor productivity and, likely, state GDP, would fall.

*Note: I'm a beer elitist.

I'm a twofer

Off-the-beaten path AND a blogger.

Bill Keller in a piece where he is trying to understand economics and partially blames loud mouth bloggers for the lack of compromise in DC:

The other day House Speaker John Boehner put out a list of 132 economists who signed a statement endorsing a Republican menu of spending cuts, tax cuts and deregulation. All of these are legitimate things to propose, but the statement claimed the Republican list “will do more to boost private-sector job growth in America in both the near-term and long-term than the ‘stimulus’ spending approach favored by President Obama.” Reputable number-crunchers like Moody’s Analytics and some top-tier economists of both parties said Boehner’s statement would have little or no impact on the short-term employment problem. So who were these 132 economists? With a few exceptions they were academics from off-the-beaten-path colleges (no offense to Dakota State University), bloggers (the Calafia Beach Pundit?) and economists from devoutly libertarian think tanks. But the news had the right-wing tom-toms beating with excitement.

No offense to the buffoons at regional state universities? Really? You meant no offense? Hahahahaha.

I noticed a few environmental economists on the list of 132. I'll speculate about macro on this blog, and sign a statement related to environmental econ (e.g., ITQs are efficient), but you won't catch me signing a macro statement. In case anyone wants to know, that is where I draw the line at ignoring my ignorance.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Tyler Cowen in a post titled "the Coase theorem is back in the saddle":

On nearly every count, the deal favors the owners, who had sought all along to overhaul the system. The players made significant concessions, including a reduction of up to $300 million year in salaries, $3 billion over the life of the agreement.

It seems there will be an NBA season.  The details of the deal have not yet been released, and on minor issues are still being negotiated, but the exact revenue split will depend on revenue projections.  Henry Abbott discusses winners and losers.

via marginalrevolution.com

There are a couple of interesting comments on what the Coase theorem is all about. This is the one that I left:

But wasn't Coase mostly concerned with externality (or did I miss something?)? The NBA situation seems like more of a negotiation over private property for which the market failure isn't externality, with an assignment of property rights solution, but market power.

I'm expecting some abuse since I haven't read Coase in 25 years. Tim: I could use a little help here!

And since we're talking about sports, watching College Game Day on the U this morning, Desmond Howard said that he thought for Auburn to win the defense and special teams should try to score a touchdown or two ... um, er, isn't what defense and special teams try to do every game? Was Desmond's insight that Auburn should try harder against Alabama?

Some other non-economic observations:

1. Lou Holtz picked Notre Dame to win today.
2. UK plays UT for last place in the SEC East. I've been wearing my hat and sweatshirt since I work up and am expecting a big win, breakin a 26 game losing streak.
3. Rick Bozich notes that everyone's sweetheart Bobby Petrino is not one to not run up a score.
4. I'll be at a pottery show next Saturday while UK plays UNC in basketball and ASU plays their first round playoff game at home. The cable guy is supposed to be here between 8 and 12 to switch out our box so that we'll have DVR (yes, I've been living without DVR).
5. #25 Centre College tries to upset #2 Mt. Union in the D3 playoffs today after the big win over Hampden-Sydney. I'll be following the live stats while watching UK-UT.
6. I just started reading the ESPN book (after finishing the Wizard of Oz in a father-daughter reading pact).