Environmental Economics

zebrafinch3 didn't even give it a chance

I saw Tim's post and clicked on the Amazon link. I love the listing -- "Used - Like New". Also, Amazon is finally recognizing that a PhD from an SEC school is not a real PhD. 

 

 

Well it's about dang time...

In the mail yesterday--get yours today (it will help our publisher recoup our whopping advance):

New book

David Zetland:

After six months of writing and revision, Living with Water Scarcity is available.

This book is a follow-up to The End of Abundance (2011), but:

• I wrote it from scratch (no editing/revision of the old book)
• It reflects my latest thinking on water tariffs, markets, environmental flows, etc.
• It has ideas that I have not explored or explained here (this is not a tease -- it was just easier to describe them in the book)
• It's shorter, cheaper and snappier than my earlier book. Lots of ideas in 110 pages!
• It's got awesome illustrations!

You can buy the book in paperback ($10), Kindle ($4.99) and PDF ($5). Just go here.

via www.aguanomics.com

As I sit by my mailbox and anxiously await...

...oh where, oh where can it be? (note the publication date, and and don't forget to order yours today).

Woo hoo!

We just sent back the second round of page proofs with four minor edits. I think we only have one more thing to do on this book ... anxiously wait to see it in print!

Another version of the free environmental economics book

Matt Kahn:

Most kids and adults want a new environmental economics book for Christmas. This is why Amazon will give away for free ($0) my new book Fundamentals of Environmental Economics: Solving Urban Pollution Problems.    This deal is only for December 25th and 26th 2013.

Given the comments I received from my UCLA students this fall, I have rewritten the entire book and it is starting to look quite strong.  For those of you who have wondered about "Chicago Price Theory" and its applications to environmental and urban issues, this book offers an introduction.  In my humble opinion, it simultaneously introduces the material and shows the reader what are many of the open research questions in the field. It also teaches the reader what applied micro economists do all day long and the challenge of integrating statistical analysis with incentive theory.

via greeneconomics.blogspot.com

How is Chicago price theory different from neoclassical price theory, other than the normative position and its application in social and other contexts (e.g., marriage and family)? Did I just answer my own question?

Also, does Chicago Price Theory suggest that market price reflects market value? :-o

Can't believe my mom found a way to cite me 1,000 times

Sitting around the office Googling myself (am I allowed to do that?) and saw this...

...just a nice round number.

An economist reviews Dan Brown's 'Inferno'

Warning: Spoiler Alert below the jump.  If you haven't read 'Inferno' yet, don;t read below the jump, I'm going to give away the plot and ending.

I recently finished reading Dan Brown's (author of The Da Vinci Code) newest book 'Inferno.' As a casual reader of the book, I found it entertaining.  Brown does his typical job of keeping the action moving, mixing in some interesting conspiracy theories, making me want to visit some cities I've never been to, and making it seem like being a college professor might be cool (although I have my doubts).  I didn't enjoy it as much as The Da Vinci Code, which I didn't enjoy as much Angels and Demons, but still a good read (and I refuse to accept that The Lost Symbol was written). 

But, as an economist, I found the book to be complete nonsense. 

Why?  Read below the jump (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN).

If only we could figure out a way to value dolphins

Warning, blatant self-and-John-promotion ahead.

So I was reading this CNN story this morning about the recent increase in bottlenose dolphin deaths on the east coast.

The carcasses of dozens of the marine mammals, seven times more than normal, have been washing up on beaches this summer, and scientists are struggling for answers to the die-off.

In Virginia alone, at least 164 dead dolphins have been found this year, said Joan M. Barns, public relations manager for the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach. Almost half of those, 78, have washed ashore in August, she said.

As of Tuesday, federal authorities say, they have recorded 228 dolphin deaths this year from New York to Virginia. In all of 2012, 111 deaths were recorded.

'Why,' you ask, 'would I bother reading about dolphins?' Well, I'm glad you asked.  First, dolphins are cute.  And B), I seem to have spent a significant portion of my adult life studying ways to use economics to inform decision makers on environmental and natural resource disasters.  So, upon reading of an anomolous (that's odd) increase in dolphin deaths, I naturally wonder, what are the costs of dolphin deaths, and what are the benefits of preventing dolphin deaths? 

So how do I find teh value of a dolphin.  Naturally I turn to the only reliable source for finding such information...Google.  So I Googled 'value of a dolhin.'  No, reallym, that's what I Googled.  because my typing skills suck.  Fortunately, Google planned for my sucky typing skills and gave me results for 'value of a dolphin.'*

The first entry that came up was this Guardian story from 2012 asking, fortuitously, 'how much is a dolphin worth?'   Using my amazing powers of recognition, I recognized the potential usefulness of the story and read:

At its most basic, the process now consuming teams of BP and government scientists and lawyers revolves around this: How much is a dolphin worth, and how exactly did it die?

...

"It is extraordinarily difficult to monetise environmental harm. What dollar value do we place on a destroyed marsh or the loss of a spawning ground? What is the price associated with killing birds and marine mammals? Even if we were capable of meaningfully establishing a price for ecological harm, there is so much that we do not know about the harm to the Gulf of Mexico – and will not know for years – that it may never be possible to come up with an accurate natural resource damage assessment," said David Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former head of the justice department's environmental crimes section.

Warning: Snark ahead. Well, gee, if only the lawyers could figure out a way to value environmental harm?  Or a way to place a dollar value on dead birds or marine mammals.  Maybe, just maybe, a bunch of people should get together and think about how lessons learned from how people place values on things like blenders and hamburgers can be translated into ways to place values on things like oil spills, or fish kills, or fish species, or natural hazard mitigation.  And, maybe, with some pie-in-the-sky thinking, these new methods for valuing the impossible might develop to the point where someone could write a book explaining the methods with an obtuse title like "Valuing Environmental and Natural Resources."

Maybe.  Oh, Maybe.  Someday.  One can hope.

*Have I ever mentioned that I am convinced that Google is the greatest invention ever? 

$40 was my reservation price

From the inbox:

You have ordered the following titles on: 06/20/2013 15:31:09 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Book Title: The International Handbook On Non-Market Environmental Valuation
Author: Bennett, J.
Book Format: Paperback ISBN: 978 0 85793 117 7 Qty: 1

Unit Price: $39.96 Item Total: $39.96