Environmental Economics

Can the GDP estimate be wrong?

Macroeconomists who criticize micro-data beware, government macro statistics also rely on surveys:

If the first-quarter G.D.P. report is wrong, can we expect it to be changed? The B.E.A. will release annual revisions at the end of this month, but there is not likely to be a lot of new information by then. As a result, any change might not be reported until 2018, the next scheduled comprehensive revision. By then, figures for this year’s first quarter are likely to be of little interest.

Whether or not the estimates are changed soon, the wildly fluctuating reports for the first quarter remind us that “there are literally hundreds of preliminary assumptions that go into estimates of economic barometers,” said Robert J. Barbera, a longtime Wall Street economist who is now the director of the Center for Financial Economics at Johns Hopkins University. “Much of the art of economic forecasting is knowing when to say, ‘Nah.’ ”

This is, he said, one of those times. “The first-quarter real G.D.P. number simply makes no sense.”

via www.nytimes.com

 

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Why am I getting spam from the "Fox School of Business, Temple University"?

Childishly, I replied to [email protected]:

I enjoyed reading about your accomplishments. Here are some of my papers that I'm sure you'd like to read!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928765597000353
http://jse.sagepub.com/content/2/1/6.short

I could go on but this is only the first edition of my newsletter.

Bad tenure news for Indiana Jones

The departmental committee has met to decide on Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones tenure, and the news is not good...

In his nine years with the department, Dr. Jones has failed to complete even one uninterrupted semester of instruction. In fact, he hasn’t been in attendance for more than four consecutive weeks since he was hired. Departmental records indicate Dr. Jones has taken more sabbaticals, sick time, personal days, conference allotments, and temporary leaves than all the other members of the department combined.

via www.mcsweeneys.net

Do "neoclassical economists regard population growth as necessary for per capita growth in gross domestic product over the long term"?

Bob Hughes, American Fisheries Society president writes:

"Population growth is a component of economic growth, determining it's natural rate (Harrod 1939). In addition, neoclassical economists regard population growth as necessary for per capita growth in gross domestic product over the long term (Romer 1990; Jones 1998). That is, neoclassical economists believe that more people are needed to stimulate more consumption per person."

But actually Romer says that human capital (i.e., knowledge, education) is necessary for economic growth but population is not (here is the pdf). There is nothing in any standard economics textbook that says population growth drives economic growth. For example, Mankiw (6e), a standard neoclassical economics textbook, says that consumption per person is: c = (1-s)f(k), where s is the saving rate and k is the capital stock per worker. 

What am I missing? Why would a fisheries biologist write such a thing?

PhD Comics on academic vacations

Source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1730

I think someone should write a novel about two environmental bloggers who save the world through wit and whim (and economics)

Is climate change due for an “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” moment? The 1852 bestseller helped transform abolitionism into a mainstream cause. Now, “cli-fi” is trying to do the same for environmentalism.

The emerging genre is a cousin of sci-fi. But its books are set, NPR writes, “in worlds, not unlike our own, where the Earth’s systems are noticeably off-kilter.” And it’s gaining both fans and writers.

via www.washingtonpost.com

It will from hereon be known as SOCCER until England wins more games than the U.S. in the World Cup.

Now that's funny.

The most famous Duke v. Duke since Trading Places

Not the Onion:

The estate of the actor John Wayne, who was known as “The Duke,” has asked a California court to affirm that it can use the word “Duke” without causing confusion. Duke University, in North Carolina, has in recent years protested such usage, saying it suggests a link between the estate and the university that does not exist.

Detailing a decade-long battle over the “Duke” brand, the estate of actor John Wayne asked a California district court to declare that Duke University and The Duke’s estate both can use the word without confusion in the market. “Duke University seems to think it owns the word ‘Duke’ for all purposes,” wrote lawyers for John Wayne Enterprises in paperwork filed July 3.

via chronicle.com

There is more here.

After they shut John Wayne down they playn to go after the Duke of Cornwall. Who does he think he is anyway?

And, yes, this is another reason to hate Duke. 

There are no coal mines on Mars

As someone who hails from the Bluegrass State, what can I say? (Huffington Post):

In a condemnatory speech last week against the Obama administration’s new Environmental Protection Agency carbon emission regulations, Kentucky state Sen. Brandon Smith (R) claimed that man-made climate change is scientifically implausible because Mars and Earth share “exactly” the same temperature.

Smith, the owner of a mining company called Mohawk Energy, argued that despite the fact that the red planet doesn’t have any coal mines, Mars and Earth share a temperature. Therefore, Smith reasoned, coal companies on Earth should be exempt from emission regulations.

During a Natural Resources and Environment Committee meeting Thursday, Smith, the Senate majority whip, said:

As you [Energy & Environment Cabinet official] sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I won’t get into the debate about climate change but I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.

According to NASA, the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit -- 138 degrees above Mars' average of -81 degrees.

Although the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet has stated that the new EPA rules will not cause Kentucky to shut down any additional coal-fired power plants, state lawmakers Thursday blamed federal environmental regulations for shuttering the state’s coal mines.

Thursday’s committee meeting was dominated by a slew of outlandish scientific claims from both Republican and Democratic climate change deniers. ...

Hat tip: Pearl

This is about all I got:

Q: How many Kentucky Republican and Democratic climate change deniers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None. It’s too early to say if the light bulb needs changing.

Adapted from http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/greenjokes.html.

A Kentucky State trooper pulls over the Kentucky Senate Majority Whip on I-75. He says to the driver, "Got any ID?" The Kentucky Senate Majority Whip says, "Bout what?"

Adapted from http://jokes4all.net/kentucky.html.

Daily demand and supply: Louisville gas prices

I drove to Louisville, Ky to visit my sister and mother during the July 4 weekend. The EIA tells me that gas prices should have been around $3.61 per gallon ("Midwest" includes Kentucky and Tennessee). 

However, in Louisville the price was almost $4 gallon. I filled half a tank on Sunday and drove south. By the time I had a quarter tank and ready to fill up the price was about $3.50. Now, on average I probably paid about $3.61 but what explains those differences? Here is what the local news had to say:

Louisville's gas prices are frustrating enough -- perhaps even more so when you see places just outside the city selling it as much as 60 cents a gallon less. If you're wondering why, you're not alone.

WDRB News found out why that is, and the reason it will likely stay that way.

Many assume that it is price gouging, but the attorney general's office, which started looking into the phenomenon several years ago, determined it's the result of a monopoly.

"I know that a lot of Louisville residents, myself included, noticed that it's always about 30 cents higher in Louisville," Allison Martin, with the Kentucky attorney general's office, said. "A lot of that has to do with the reformulated gas that the EPA makes bigger cities use."

Attorney general Jack Conway also found a few more reasons for the price differences.

"A bigger issue across the state is that there is one supplier of gasoline at the wholesale level and that is Marathon Oil," Martin said. "And we believe that when Marathon and Ashland merged in the 1990s . . . that created a lack of competition at the wholesale level in Kentucky." ...

But don't expect any changes. Martin said the attorney general's office has completed its investigation and didn't find anything criminal, though it does question the lack of competition in the market. ...

Martin said Conway refused to take no for an answer and with a new chairwoman onboard at the FTC, the merger is being reviewed again. ...