Environmental Economics

"How Coastal Cities Are Preparing For Climate Change"

With zero chance of a carbon tax in the U.S., here are some important examples of adaptation:

With experts predicting that the effects of global warming could be catastrophic in the next 50 years, here are some ways that coastal cities are addressing the challenges of rising sea levels:

• Bar Harbor, ME: Officials urging residents to stockpile vintage charm in case of emergency
• Manhattan, NY: Initiating 10-year plan to replace inhabited residences with vacant Emirati-owned condo developments
• Nashville, TN: Making a concerted effort to keep their perimeter 435 miles from the nearest ocean
• Boston, MA: Residents have opened all of their doors and windows and issued an open challenge to the forces of nature to come at them
• Seattle, WA: Space Needle jacked up 200 feet higher
• Baltimore, MD: Restoring natural shoreline buffers like wetlands and shuttered factories
• Washington, D.C.: Thorough Scotchgarding of the Bill of Rights
• Atlantic City, NJ: Developers working around the clock to build something that would be worth saving from a flood
• San Francisco, CA: Dutifully pricing entire population out of any homes within 50 miles of coastline
• Galveston, TX: All set to rebuild coastal levees with government funding the moment Congress gets around to admitting climate change is real

via www.theonion.com

Would you rather have a degree without an education or an education without a degree?

I found this debate between Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok (at Marginal Revolution University), on whether college education provides learning or signaling, interesting.  Particularly important right now:  If college education is primarily learning and learning is productivity enhancing, then universal college education will be productivity enhancing, but if college degrees simply provide workforce signaling--who is likely to be productive, and who is not--then universal college education will degrade this signaling mechanism. 

I think I side with Alex on this one:  We are primarily providing a signaling role.  But I would qualify that a bit:  Tyler makes the point that in the process of learning, students acquire soft skills:  critical thinking, social interactions, how to acquiesce to rules...  I agree with this.  So a better question might be, does the content of college classes really matter?  While students will remember very few of the details of their individual classes (I remember taking a class on ancient world history, but remember little other than my professor pretending to be Julius Caesar) they likely gain other skills that are valuable to employers. 

So of course, the answer to the question 'Is Education Signaling or Skill Building?' is: YES.

 

"Carbon tax initiative goes to November ballot in Washington"

Would someone please starting planning their voting study?

An initiative that would create a carbon tax in Washington state is now headed to the November ballot.

Lawmakers adjourned the special legislative session late Tuesday without taking action on Initiative 732, thus sending the statewide ballot measure to voters.

I-732 would impose a carbon tax of $25 per metric ton of emissions from fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal and natural gas. Meanwhile, it would lower the state sales tax by one point, virtually eliminate business taxes for manufacturers and provide rebates for working families.

Initiative sponsor Carbon Washington says the tax encourages people and businesses to switch to cleaner energy by making fossil fuels more expensive.

Some including the Washington State Labor Council have lined up in opposition.

via q13fox.com

I'm underpaid by $40,000

Because I work at a nonunionized, midsized*, rural institution:

Full-time instructors at regional public universities earn an average of about $21,000, or nearly 25 percent, more in pay and benefits annually if they belong to a union, concludes a groundbreaking new study of compensation at such institutions.

The location and size of the employer also makes a big difference. Those in larger suburban public universities, the highest-paying category of institutions studied, earned an average of nearly $17,000, or 20 percent, more in pay and benefits annually than those at midsize rural institutions, the lowest-paying category.

Such pay gaps become even larger when all three factors — location, size, and union status — are considered together. Unionized instructors at larger suburban institutions earn an average of about $40,000, or 50 percent, more than their nonunionized peers at midsize rural institutions, the study found.

Past research on faculty earnings at public universities has offered a distorted picture by lumping in data from state flagships and from regional institutions, argues a paper summarizing the study’s findings.

Given how the nation’s 390 public regional universities differ from flagships in their missions, student populations, and faculty workloads, they "deserve analysis in their own right," says the paper, presented in New York on Sunday at the annual conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.

via chronicle.com

Of course, I'm not underpaid by $40,000 (but I might could make more money in the big city). The study uses a simple comparison of means for the statistical analysis. My guess is that some regression analysis would chip away at the raw differences as the initial sorting of professors depends on quality (the most promising graduate students tend to take the higher wage offers and end up working at unionized, large suburban institutions). But, still, the raw data is suggestive.

*Size, I think, is based on the number of graduate degrees awarded and by that definition we are not large (although I don't think the paper makes it clear).

Where I'll be today

UNC Charlotte Economics Seminar Series: 2015 – 2016

4/1

John Whitehead Appalachian State

Estimating Lost Recreational Use Value of Visitors to Northwest Florida from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill using Revealed and Stated Preference Data

10-11:30am, Friday 207