Environmental Economics

We must have faces made for blogging

Browsing through the streaming videos available on Amazon Prime last night, I came across a documentary series called "wetheeconomy."  I'm probably slow to the party but the series features a series of short (5-10 minute) documentaries introducing basic economic topics like supply and demand, measuring GDP, what is money,...  Of particular interest to this blog, one of the documentaries is titled "A Bee's Invoice: The Hidden Value in Nature," which is designed to answer the question: Are natural resources vital to the economy?  

The environmental economist in me is excited to see environmental valuation included in Chapter 1 of a series introducing a wide array of economic topics.  Maybe, this whole environmental economics thing is gaining some traction. 

The jealous, rapidly aging human in me is jealous that the film features appearances by two economists, both of whom have interacted on our blog, and neither of whom is named Whitehead or Haab. Anyway, nice work Gernot Wagner and Jodi Beggs* in promoting the cause.  I presume they were chosen because the producers thought  John and I were unavailable--either that or they wanted younger faces to attract a different demographic than the epitome of boring middle-class soccer/baseball dads.

*Jodi once called us cool, and Gernot stoops so low as to occasionally contribute to Env-Econ.  I'm going to go as far as say we had a part in launching the careers of these two film stars.  Hopefully they remember us when the riches start to flow.

Greetings from the Bay!

Hi all,

John has allowed me to have a stab at blogging here after a long time as a reader and a former life as a economics grad student.  I'll give some details regarding myself so you have an idea of my background and my frame of reference.

I was a grad student in the DARE program at Colorado State for my masters degree and then started a PhD in economics at UCSB.  I exited the progam and moved up to the San Francisco Bay area to become a data analyst in the tech industry - at a video game company, no less!  My area of interest when I was in academia was natural disaster risk modeling, environmental effects on housing prices and externality market dynamics.  As a data analyst, I work with "big data" (warning: buzzword) and have an interest in data science methods like machine learning.

I have a desire to stay involved in environmental economics through reading current research and communicating with you, the research/policy/econ-hobbyist community!  Hopefully I can give my "Silcon Valley view" on the field with articles about data-driven approaches to environmental economics.  I also hope to be challenged, enlightened and occasionally disproved by the community here so that I can hone my arguments and my thinking.  If you have any questions or comments for me, feel free to send me an email.

Drew Moxon

Take the Kristof challenge!

At the risk of declaring oneself a public "intellectual" (The Ticker):

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times riled many scholars with a column in Sunday’s newspaper that laments what he perceives as the disappearance of intellectuals from the national stage.

Mr. Kristof writes that there are some exceptions to his assertion but adds that, “over all, there are, I think, fewer public intellectuals on American university campuses today than a generation ago.”

“A basic challenge is that Ph.D. programs have fostered a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience,” he argues. “This culture of exclusivity is then transmitted to the next generation through the publish-or-perish tenure process. Rebels are too often crushed or driven away.”

Many observers took to Twitter (see the hashtag #EngagedAcademics) and their blogs to fire back at Mr. Kristof. ...

Read the rest to see some of the outrage ... "hey, we have a blog!" "there are newspaper columns!" But I agree mostly with Kristof. Engaging the public with outreach economics (blogs, community talks) is something only an embarrassingly small fraction of economics professors wants to do*. I disagree when he points to PhD programs and the tenure process as being a large part of the problem. PhD programs don't create automotons who can only speak inbred research gibberish. They generally create articulate researchers who can also teach (I say that with the caveat that I don't know many people at the top progams, they may well be automotons). In terms of the tenure process, this might be old fashioned but an assistant professor should focus on building a vita before s/he turns more of their attention to outreach. The pre-tenure years are only a small chunk of the time one has in a career. The bigger problem is that there is little pecuniary incentive to engage in outreach as part of your job on campus. 

In our little corner of outreach we always had hopes that we might be able to attract many more bloggers. We've had a number of guest bloggers over the years but no one has really wanted to make this part of their life's work (for a counter example, see Zetland) or they have their own blog. It can't hurt to make the offer again. If you think you have something to say and might like to become a blogger without incurring all of the fixed costs, think about becoming a regular contributor to the Environmental Economics blog. Shoot me an email if you have any interest and we can set it up. One to two posts a week every other quarter (in GDP terms, not the academic calendar) and we'll be happy to add your name to the left hand column! And, obviously, the posts need not always be all that serious-minded. 

*Note: I know 125+ environmental and resource economists who are willing to write for a general audience.

Republicans for Environmental Progress: An Endangered Species

For most of modern American history, the two major political parties in America have largely agreed on the desired long-term environmental outcomes for the country: there was a consensus among Republicans and Democrats that it was a good thing to press for cleaner air and water, less toxins in the environment, biodiversity preservation, and mitigation strategies for clean energy and, mostly recently, climate change.

Bad news for Saturn owners (e.g., Tim)

From the WSJ's Evening Wrap:

General Motors said it would close its Saturn operation after Penske Automotive Group ended its effort to acquire the brand.

Penske said it decided not to purchase Saturn due to concerns about where it would acquire vehicles after GM stopped making them for the dealership chain.

Penske in June agreed to acquire the brand with the exception of its manufacturing operations.

Background: D'oh

Tim can Tweet

From the inbox:

Thanks for contacting TypePad One customer support! We've reviewed your request and have responded to your ticket 'twitter'.

Hi John-

Thanks for your patience. We released an update to TypePad today which now allows Guest Authors to share posts on Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed.

The Authors can add their accounts at Account > Other Accounts and select to share their posts. Then, the sharing options will display on the Compose page.

Authors, however, will not have the option to set the sharing options as selected by default.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Jen

I wasn't expeecting that sort of response from Typepad!

Quote of the day

“Dr. Whitehead brings a different expertise to the college in terms of his focus on environmental economics,” [business school dean Randy Edwards] said.

Translation: how soon can I can the clown?

I should have chosen the bluepill*

What I did today instead of blogging.

Date: 2009 Orientation for New Chairs and Deans, Location: Aug  4 2009  8:15AM

Leader: Hubbard Center Classroom, 1028 Anne Belk Hall

Enjoyment lasted from 8:15 to 4:15 and consisted of 18 administrators giving 15-30 minute presentations concerning the minutiae of department chairdom.

*Note: Bluepill

With friends like these ...

I sent a text message to Tim Haab on Saturday ...

... a while later I get a response:

Who is this?

I guess I'm not in his My Circle. Sniff.

Subject: soggy dinner promotion on env-econ

From the inbox:

Just noticed that env econ now features a blog ad from Repower America claiming that a cap on carbon will "create tens of thousands of jobs for Americans". I guess it's all about the Benjamins with you two ;)

My reply:

More like "Hamiltons," but, yes, we're in this primarily for the jack. It really is interesting, we get lots of blogads that trumpet green jobs.