Environmental Economics

Daily Demand and Supply: The market for berries and bears

The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has an unexpected upside: It's helping to fatten up the bears, new research suggests.

The wolves have kept the park's population of elks (prey for wolves) in check, which in turn limits how many berry-producing shrubs the elks consume. As a result, the bears have more tasty berries to eat, finds a study published today (July 29) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

via news.yahoo.com

After re-introduction of the wolves, the supply of berries increased leading to lower 'cost of extraction' for bears and increased consumption.

Too much of a stretch?

Bookmark us on your phone!

I've just discovered that we have a mobile version at the knowledge base. Leave me a snarky comment if I should have known this years ago. Our mobile URL is:

http://www.env-econ.net/.m/

You can click on the link to see what it looks like. It is not so pretty but it might help with readability.

Should I try to figure out "head-common-extra-mobile" and "footer-extra-mobile"?

Another grand experiment

Robert Stavins on California's cap-and-trade policy:

Despite this fundamental reality [that climate change should be addressed at the international level], there can still be a valuable role for sub-national climate policies .... This is particularly true when appropriate national policies fail to materialize.  The failure of the U.S. Senate to pass companion legislation to the Waxman-Markey bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June, 2009, highlighted the absence of a national, economy-wide carbon pricing policy.

Recently, another argument has arisen for the importance of California’s climate policy, namely its potential precedent and lessons for other jurisdictions around the world, including other states, provinces, countries, and regions. ...

The California Air Resources Board has done a remarkable job in its initial design of the rules for its path-breaking GHG cap-and-trade system. That’s not to say that it is perfect, or that it could be perfect. There will inevitably be unanticipated challenges that will arise, whether from complying firms, from the broader economy, from litigation, or from other legislation. The goal at this stage should be to design a system that is reasonably robust to such unanticipated shocks.

via www.robertstavinsblog.org

The snip deletes Stavin's detailed discussion of:

1. the GHG allowance reserve
2. offsets
3. allowance holding limits

A sharper tack would summarize these issues for you in a few sentences. Sigh.

A reminder that the broken window game has never been short on players

This was originally posted on 3-8-08 under the title "'Create jobs' sells, 'Increase efficiency' doesn't" (I was, like, 24 years old back then):

At Terra Rosa:

In a new nationwide TV ad premiering [March 17], three surprising voices join the climate chorus:

* Robert Lane, CEO of John Deere,

* Alexander M. “Sandy” Cutler, CEO of Eaton Corp., and
* Frank Knapp, president of the 5,000-member South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce

These leaders urge Congress to adopt a market-based cap & trade policy. They’ve put their business credibility to work for this message: cap & trade will drive the investments necessary to create American jobs and stop climate change.

Actually, there will be no major long-term impact on the number of jobs in the U.S. My prediction is that the unemployment rate, the labor force participation rate and the employment population ratio will not be significantly affected by significant climate policy. Why? The (CO2 intensive) job losses that climate policy opponents trumpet will be offset by the (CO2 not-so-intensive) job gains that climate policy proponents trumpet (remember the "giant sucking sound" that was to be NAFTA?).

Now it is a brand new post! From the inbox on 7-30-13:

We have recently decided to move our site terrarossa.com permanently to our new site address environmental.laws.com . I kindly request you to update the terrarossa.com link in your website to point to the page on our new home environmental.laws.com.

Our terrarossa.com link is referenced in this page:
http://www.env-econ.net/2008/03/index.html

Please change it to:
http://environmental.laws.com/

Unfortunately, I can't find where they put that old webpage (here are the results of the google search for the text) so there is not much point in editing the Terra Rosa link, is there (I've sent a request to the webmaster)? 

Besides, my comments about the link were negative so why would they want me to fix their dead link to a dead post?

It is notable that the environmental broken window fallacy is not new and will likely go on forever.

The very first issue of Water Resources and Economics

From the inbox:

We are very pleased to present you with the first issue of our new journal, Water Resources & Economics. All articles published in this journal, will be freely available for the first year via ScienceDirect.

Editor-in-Chief Prof. Dr. Roy Brouwer sees an important role for the journal in providing scientific information about the economic costs and benefits of water use and management: 'Economics is one of the most prominent emerging disciplines associated to water resources research. The journal addresses the financial and economic dimensions affecting the use of water resources, be it water extraction, pollution, floods or allocation, across different economic sectors like agriculture, energy, industry and urban water supply as well as between local, regional and transboundary river basins.'

Here is an interesting paragraph from the Editor-in-Chief's Editorial:

In the build-up of this first issue, a number of important links were established with the help of the journal’s international editorial board. The journal Water Resources and Economics is scientifically linked to the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). One of the EAERE Board Members is a valuable member of our editorial board. Water Resources and Economics endorses the aims of this international scientific association, and aspires to uphold the same quality standards as the EAERE’s official journal Environmental and Resource Economics (ERE). This implies that we have been very critical in the screening and selection of the first papers that were submitted to the journal since its online launch in the second half of 2012. The rejection rate in the first 6 months has been high (75% including desk rejections) to ensure a high quality of the papers published in this new journal from the start. This is a risky choice for a new journal, but one which we decided is worth taking to clearly position ourselves in the existing wide range of academic water related journals. We wish to publish papers of outstanding quality, also if this means less issues every year and consequently that it will perhaps take longer to establish a name for our journal. The papers submitted to the journal need to clearly focus on the economics of water resources and their management, apply sound economic methods and contain novelty that distinguishes them from the existing literature. This is the niche we are looking for in the growing market of water and environmental economics oriented journals. We do not compete for articles with journals like ERE, we aim to build up a niche of outstanding, high quality papers in the specific domain of water economics.

 

"Tiny Centre College in Kentucky lands $250M donation"

News about my alma mater:

A tiny liberal arts school in rural Kentucky that hosted vice presidential debates in 2000 and 2012 announced a $250 million donation Tuesday, one of the largest single gifts in higher education history.

The all-stock donation to Centre College from the A. Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust ranks among the 20 biggest gifts ever to a U.S. college or university, according to a list maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education. ...

Centre will use the money to set up scholarships for students majoring in science, economics and computer science. ...

Starting in fall 2014, 40 new Brockman Scholarships will be funded each year for students majoring in the natural and computational sciences and economics, with a total of 160 students receiving the full-ride scholarships plus more benefits by 2017, the school said. The merit-based scholarships will cover tuition, room and board, and fees — which will cost $45,100 for the coming school year — as well as money to support study abroad, summer research and internships. ...

Brockman formed the charitable trust in 1981. His son, Robert T. “Bob” Brockman, is a Centre graduate and a former chairman of the school’s board of trustees. ...

The elder Brockman “saw firsthand the tremendous impact that Centre had on his son ... whose own drive and ambition were empowered by his experience as a Centre student,” said Evatt Tamine, trustee of the Brockman Trust.

The leafy campus in Danville, a picturesque central Kentucky town of about 16,000, has found itself on the nation’s political center stage twice, when it hosted vice presidential debates in 2000 pitting Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman and again in 2012 when Joe Biden and Paul Ryan squared off.

Centre expects enrollment of about 1,370 students for the fall semester. The school ranked 52nd nationally among liberal arts colleges in last year’s ratings from U.S. News & World Report, but it ranked fifth in best undergraduate teaching and alumni giving.

via www.washingtonpost.com

Some comments:

1. I majored in economics at Centre College. I'm quite sure I would not have been a "Brockman Scholar." At the time, the economics major was one of the easiest with more of a political economy bent. Many of the knuckleheads majored in it. My first semester of graduate school was a shock. 
2. $250m is a lot of stock. Suppose it earns an average of 3.5% each year. That will generate $8.75m and support 160 students with almost $10k per student for study abroad and et cetera (if I was economics faculty I would definitely try do some faculty-student research that requires grant money for a survey :)
3. The elder Brockman also saw firsthand "... that preparation for leadership and service in a rapidly changing world best takes place with the firm intellectual, moral, and social grounding that young people receive especially well at Centre." I received some serious grounding in front of the student higher judiciary! Thanks Dean Mount!
4. Ranking 52nd nationally requires a "but" afterwards? As if 52nd is kinda sorry?

I'm considering retirement

Former Ohio State University president Gordon Gee, who retired under a cloud after remarks jabbing Roman Catholics and Southeastern Conference schools, will receive a $5.8 million package over the next five years, along with an office, a secretary and a premium parking pass, the university said Monday.

The contract with Gee includes a one-time payment of $1.5 million, an annual salary of $410,000 and a $300,000 annual grant for research on 21st-century education policy. It also retains him as a full professor in the university's College of Law, pays him health insurance and covers moving and storage expenses.

via sportsillustrated.cnn.com

This is the kind of retirement deal all OSU employees get...right?

International trade

A textbook example:

Crabs from the sounds and intracoastal waterway are North Carolina’s largest seafood industry with an overall value last year of $22.8 million. That’s a third of the state’s entire commercial seafood catch of $73 million of fish and shellfish in 2012.

In the mid-1990s, Mattamuskeet was one of about 45 crab processors in the state. Now there are 10.

Why? Imported crabmeat.

Ninety-one percent of all the seafood Americans consume comes from overseas, according to the federal government. Crab is no different. While statistics aren’t easily available for the handpicked fresh crabmeat that Mattamuskeet produces, 99 percent of the 66 million pounds of canned crabmeat sold in the United States in 2011 was imported, according to numbers shared by the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association based in Virginia.

It is imported from countries such as China, Indonesia, Venezuela and Mexico.

Imported crabmeat can be more appealing to some consumers and chefs. It tends to be whiter in appearance, has less shell and a mild flavor – an asset for chefs who want to add their own seasonings.

North Carolina crabmeat, by contrast, is grayer, can have more shell and has the classic sweet, briny flavor of crab.

The Carawans [Mattamuskeet Seafood in Swan Quarter] charge $22 a pound for jumbo lump crabmeat and $12 a pound for backfin meat. But there’s a limit to how much they can charge because imported crabmeat is cheaper.

via www.newsobserver.com

I mistakenly bought a pound of Chinese crab earlier this summer. We made sure to buy North Carolina crab meat for "John's gluten free crabcakes" last month. The Chinese crab is still in the frig but I'll probably cook it this week. 

Picture of the Day

While waiting for Official Oldest Daughter of Env-Econ's (OODEE) softball team to start an 8AM softball game at the NSA 16U Nationals in Chattanooga, Tennessee last week, I decided to play with my iPhone's panorama feature.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

Photo Credit: Me

All work and no play

Photo credit: Anne McAfee