Environmental Economics

An empirical test of the short-run and long-run elasticity for smoking?

New Zealand’s Health Ministry has reportedly considered boosting the price of a pack of cigarettes as high as $100 ($81 U.S.) in a bid to make the country smoke free by 2025.

An internal government working paper raised the possibility of upping the cost of a 20-cigarette pack by 30 to 60 percent and tacking on yearly increases of 30 percent, Sky News reported.

With cigarettes now priced at about $16 to $17, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the $100 suggestion seemed like “an awful lot” and could encourage a black market, Fairfax NZ News reported.

via www.nbcnewyork.com

As an empirical economist, I hope they do it--assuming they track consumption and have perfect enforcement.  It will be cool data.  As for the smoking part...meh.

A cool demonstration of the Prisoners' Dilemma with real stakes

Hat tip: Phil Miller and Dave Warren via Facebook

And sometimes I snap

One of the benefits of being a blogger is that you get sooooo many great items of interest in your inbox (i.e., spam). Here is one I received on 4/23/2012 at 2:23 PM:

Just wanted to make sure you saw our announcement from Friday. If you have any questions or need any additional information, please let me know.

[some sort of greatest environmental project ever]

Most times I ignore these, sometimes I add the sender to my blocked list, sometimes I write something negative about it, sometimes I tease the object of the spam. Today, I actually replied:

Here is a link to one of my recent papers: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/aplwpaper/12-01.htm

If you have any questions or need any additional information, please let me know.

I publicly apologize to the publicist who had to deal with my irritation today.

Update: from an email at 3:31 PM:

Thank you

An update on Tim's parking situation

Chronicle.com:

Over the wishes of its faculty, Ohio State University said it would seek bids this month from private investors interested in taking over the institution's vast parking operation. Under the proposal, the university would lease its 36,000 parking spaces to a private concessionaire for 30 to 50 years in exchange for a minimum lump-sum payment of $375-million.

If Ohio State's Board of Trustees accepts a bid, campus parking consultants have said, it would be the biggest privatized parking operation at an academic institution.

A survey that members of the faculty council e-mailed to some 2,800 faculty members from March 27 to April 2 found that 84 percent responded negatively to the question, "Do you support privatization of OSU's parking operations?" Eighty-six respondents said yes, 1,047 said no, and 119 said they didn't know enough to decide. The survey included links to information from Ohio State's faculty council, the university administration, and the student newspaper. It was unclear if opponents of the plan felt the university should hold out for more money or simply rejected any effort to privatize parking, presumably because their fees would go up. ...

The money would be placed in an endowment that would pay for such things as new faculty positions, student scholarships, support for arts and humanities facilities, and operating the university's transit system.

While Appstate is in the mountainous western part of the state of NC ...

I don't think this is what we are looking for:

With this merger looking like it won't happen, there are immediate consequences for the Mountain West, which needs to add schools with the impending departure of TCU, Boise State and San Diego State in 2013.

Each FBS conference has to have at least eight women's sports and six men's sports, with at least six schools competing in every sport the conferences offers.

The Mountain West should immediately look into teams interested in joining the FBS, Appalachian State being a prime example. 

via bleacherreport.com

This was also the founding principle of my high school years

The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR:

You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding the eventual fate of your submission. You know with 100% certainty that it will not be accepted for publication.

There are no page-fees.

You may claim to have submitted to the most prestigious journal (judged by acceptance rate).

The JofUR is one-of-a-kind. Merely submitting work to it may be considered a badge of honor.

You retain complete rights to your work, and are free to resubmit to other journals even before our review process is complete.

Decisions are often (though not always) rendered within hours of submission.

via www.universalrejection.org

A personal Coasian dilemma

Here's the situation:

Backdoor neighbor A has a lush, weed-free, green lawn.  Due to fits of jealousy (and pressure from my green-lawn obsessed father for which I still suffer from childhood psychological nightmares of lawn cutting and weeding), I too strive for a weed-free green lawn.  Unfortunately, backdoor neighbor B does not share our love for an unaturally perfect greenscape.  Instead, backdoor neighboor B (who are good friends--as I have stumbled home from their house a number of times) has decided that a lawn full of Ohio's best growing crop (dandelions) is preferred.  Obviously, the discord between these preferences is causing an externality for someone.  While I am not sure who is imposing the externality on whom, all I know is that I have dandelions in my lawn right now and I am not pleased.

So here's the dilemma, do neighbor A and I have the right to a green lawn, or does neighbor B have the right to violate my sense of what a nice lawn should look like--or both?  Seeing as I am the one who is complaining, I guess you could argue that if I am so offended, I should be willing to pay for neighbor B to have a lawn that pleases my senses and doesn't encroach on my lawn.  But I could counter that neighbor B's indifference is imposing costs on me since I have to exert extra effort, time and money to keep my lawn weed free--they are the polluter, they should pay! 

And while the above story is allegorical for a larger scale discussion of property rights, preferences and polluter pays, as the picture below shows, allegory is sometimes based in reality. 

At the left of the picture, around the tree, is neighbor A's weed-free lawn.

In the foreground and to the right is my half-mowed, mostly weed-free lawn.  I

n the middle-top is the offending party's sea of dandelion puffs. 

The weird line going through the picture is my headphone cord. 

I have to listen to 80's music while mowing the lawn. 

Come on Eileen!

I bet that song's in your head for the rest of the day now.

PHD Comics: Academic Homepage

Source: www.phdcomics.com

Another honest to goodness environmental paper in the AER*

AEAWEB:

Fowlie, Meredith, Stephen P. Holland, and Erin T. Mansur. 2012. "What Do Emissions Markets Deliver and to Whom? Evidence from Southern California's NOx Trading Program." American Economic Review, 102(2): 965–93.
DOI:10.1257/aer.102.2.965

Abstract An advantage of cap-and-trade programs over more prescriptive environmental regulation is that compliance flexibility and cost effectiveness can make more stringent emissions reductions politically feasible. However, when markets (versus regulators) determine where emissions occur, it becomes more difficult to assure that mandated emissions reductions are equitably achieved. We investigate these issues in the context of Southern California's RECLAIM program by matching facilities in RECLAIM with similar California facilities also in nonattainment areas. Our results indicate that average emissions fell 20 percent at RECLAIM facilities relative to our counterfactual. Furthermore, observed changes in emissions do not vary significantly with neighborhood demographic characteristics. (JEL H23, L51, Q53, Q58)

I've printed it. Then, I'll read it. Next, I'll find the fatal flaw. Then, I'll write a comment and get it published in the AER. Finally, I'll be famous as the guy who wrote that comment in the AER.

*Those guys at the AER are getting soft. I'm embarrassed for them.

Core Sound Fresh Seafood

From the inbox:

The first Core Sound Fresh Seafood CSF pick up will be Friday April 13th from 8-10am in the Bare Essentials Natural Market parking lot.

Bring your own bag for transport home and please be prompt--I can't stay later than 10.
If for some crazy reason you do not show up by 10, your share will be donated to a food pantry. Sorry no refunds.

In this share:

Full shares: 2 lbs flounder filets, 2 pints shucked clams

Half Shares: 1lb flounder filets, 1lb shucked clams

We got the half-share so this weekend we grilled 1 lb of flounder (which turns out to be a lot) and made a pot of Manhattan clam chowder. The price is about $10/lb which is less than buying "fresh" (i.e., probably previously frozen) seafood at our grocery.