Environmental Economics

Moral (road) hazard

It's perplexing for both police and lawmakers throughout the U.S.: They want to do something about the danger of texting while driving, a major road hazard, but banning the practice seems to make it even more dangerous.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 3 of every 4 states that have enacted a ban on texting while driving have seen crashes actually go up rather than down.

It's hard to pin down exactly why this is the case, but experts believe it is a result of people trying to avoid getting caught in states with stiff penalties. Folks trying to keep their phones out of view will often hold the phone much lower, below the wheel perhaps, in order to keep it out of view. That means the driver's eyes are looking down and away from the road.

via www.ksl.com

HT: BG via Facebook

Let the downloads begin!

From the inbox:

We invite you to read a selection of highly cited Springer journals free of charge now through November 30! Journals you should know. Journals your colleagues read and cite.

Read these highly cited Economics journals:

Public Choice Environmental and Resource Economics Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

Open the champagne

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The Nobel Prize in forest economics?

Congratulations to the authors! From the inbox:

We are glad to announce that the 2012 Sören Wibe Prize was awarded to Christopher C. Moore, Thomas P. Holmes and Kathleen. P. Bell, for their article "An attribute-based approach to contingent valuation of forest protection programs":

Journal of Forest Economics 17 (2011):35-52

The article provides a well-structured, well-written, and innovative piece of research in applying contingent valuation of welfare effects of forest conservation in the special case of Eastern Hemlock in the United States. The article presents an "attribute based" CV method to study the welfare gains, to carry out cost-benefit analysis, and to inform the distribution of mitigation effort over land units. One of the key questions studied is the preference of the citizens concerning ecologically valuable sites versus recreational sites. The results indicate, interestingly, that people are willing to provide "substantial support" to programs that protect ecological sites, in spite of their description "difficult for visitors to access". For practical policy planning, the results are interesting. First of all, welfare effects from conservation clearly exceed the low conservation costs, and almost any program with positive welfare effects would pass the cost-benefit test. More importantly, when the welfare effects of the weighted optimal allocation of conservation sites are compared to the actual program, it turns out that the current allocation is strongly biased towards human-use sites as compared to a much larger share of ecological sites of the optimal allocation. The study demonstrates that although many conservation programs may pass the cost-benefit tests, significant welfare gains are possible if the preferences of the public are correctly accounted for in the allocation of conservation measures to forest sites with different environmental benefits.

The 2012 Award Selection committee comprised of: Sashi Kant, Jari Kuuluvainen and David Newman (chair).

Thanks to the support of Sören Wibe's family, the Journal publisher Elsevier, and the Department of Forest Economics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the prize winners will receive a cash amount of € 2 000, and will be invited to give a lecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Yours sincerely,

Runar Brännlund, Ola Carlén, Peichen Gong
Editors Journal of Forest Economics

 

Our blog has had a glitch since 2005

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This is why you need to look at the data

From the National Journal:

Some observations that go against my own preconceptions:

• Bud leans left but Sam Adams leans right?  I would've thought Bud was preferred by the conservative NASCAR crowd while Sam Adams was preferred by them liberal Yankees
• Corona left, but Corona Light right? Heineken left but Amstel Light right? Miller Genuine Draft and Miller High Life to the left of Miller Lite? Are conservatives more concerned about their figures?

And is anyone surprised that Shiner Bock is the most conservative?

My Shiner Bock story.  Two years ago, I took my Dad down to the Final Four in Houston.  Due to flight delays, he beat me down there by a day.  When I met up with him at the hotel, he greeted me with, "Hey, I found this great new beer last night in the hotel bar*...It's called Shiner something, I think it's one of those new microbrews."

"Dad, it's Shiner Bock, it's a Texas beer and it's been around for a hundred years."

"Well, it's new to me."

*Apple...tree.

Black grouper

Market price = $26

I will no longer predict anything*

Earthquake experts around the world say they are appalled by an Italian court's decision to convict six scientists on manslaughter charges for failing to predict the deadly quake that devastated the city of L'Aquila. They warned the ruling could severely harm future scientific research.

The court in L'Aquila sentenced the scientists and a government official Monday to six years in prison, ruling that they didn't accurately communicate the risk of the earthquake in 2009 that killed more than 300 people.

The trial centered on a meeting a week before the 6.3-magnitude quake struck. At the meeting, the experts determined that it was "unlikely" but not impossible that a major quake would take place, despite concern among the city's residents over recent seismic activity.

Prosecutors said the defendants provided "inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory information about the dangers" facing L'Aquila.

The court agreed, convicting the six scientists from the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) and a member of the Civil Protection Agency. It also ordered the Italian authorities to pay 7.8 million euros ($10 million) in damages.

via www.cnn.com

*In case you missed the point, the title is supposed to illustrate the problem with holding scientists responsible for inherent uncertainties in prediction.

Where have I been for the last 5 months?

If you would have asked me when I was 16 to go out and run 13.1 miles, I would have laughed you off my couch. 5 months ago, the 16 year old Official Oldest Daughter of Env-Econ ASKED ME to run a half-marathon with her. Having never run more than 4 miles before, and never having been a regular runner, I dreaded the challenge, but couldn't let her know.  The training sucked.  The race was worse.  But dammit, yesterday, we did it (and did I mention she's 16?).  Here's a picture at the finish line.  
So here's the difference between being 16 and 42. At 42, you wake up at 5AM, you run a half marathon, barely make it across the finish line, then walk around the rest of the day like your legs weigh 100 pounds each. If you're 16, you wake up at 5AM, you run a half marathon, then meet up with your softball team so you can pitch the semifinal and final game, then come home and do a few hours of homework.

 

What I'm doing tomorrow

(Apologies if this needs rotation)