Three Cheers for the Modest Economist
I agree with every word in Jonathan's recent blog post. In 1988, I entered the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program intending to become a macro economist. I quickly decided that the subject was too hard and that the macro data were of low quality and since there is (and was) no "control group" there was (and is) no possibility of convincingly testing hypotheses of "what causes what". I have lived my life as a happy applied environmental and urban economist and ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Sued Again Over Cap-and-Trade Program
Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit today against the state’s Air Resources Board on the grounds that the auction of allowances under California’s cap-and-trade program constitutes an unconstitutional tax. In the new suit, Morning Star Packing Company v. California Air Resources Board, PLF argues that a) the auctioning of revenues constitute a tax which b) requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature which c) it hasn’t received because AB 32 doesn’t author...
CONTINUE READING(Another) Bad Day for Economists
One interesting project for future intellectual historians will be figuring out how economics became the queen of the social scientists when virtually none of their predictions have come true and so much of their empirical work is downright shoddy. Perhaps it will lie in the way ideology can take over the discipline because of data specifications and econometric choices. But sometimes it's just simple ignorance. Earlier today, we discovered that the famous work by K...
CONTINUE READINGChinese Willingness to Pay for Clean Air
In joint research with several of my friends, in this recently published paper we use cross- Chinese city data on real estate prices and ambient air pollution to measure the rent premium in cleaner cities. The benefits of any environmental regulation hinge on its causal impact on ambient pollution and on how much people value a reduction in pollution and on how many people are exposed. Our work provides new estimates on the 2nd factor. A novel feature of our pa...
CONTINUE READINGAn Energy No-Brainer
There are a lot of things to disagree about in terms of energy policy. One thing that ought to be common ground, as discussed in a Washington Post column, is increased research in energy R&D. As this chart shows, federal support for energy R&D is smaller than it was under Ronald Reagan: The economic argument for supporting R&D is simple. Private firms don't have enough of an incentive to engage in basic research because intellectual property law does...
CONTINUE READINGBagenstos on the Health Care Case: Critical Reading for Environmental Lawyers
Sam Bagenstos at Michigan Law School has long distinguished himself as one of the most thoughtful constitutional doctrinalists in the country (and maybe the best disability scholar as well). He is out with a new article in the Georgetown Law Journal concerning the Spending Clause implications of the health care case. Environmental lawyers and scholars should care about this for obvious reasons: major environmental statutes rely on funding incentives to get states t...
CONTINUE READINGHydraulic Fracking in California: New Report Addresses Wastewater and Potential Water Impacts
Today, Berkeley Law released a new report on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in California, focusing on wastewater and potential water quality impacts. The report, Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing in California: A Wastewater and Water Quality Perspective, is an independent analysis produced by Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) through its new initiative, the Wheeler Institute for Water Law & Policy (Wheeler Institute). ...
CONTINUE READINGExxon Cares!
At this point, we don't know much about Exxon's oil spill near Mayflower, Arkansas -- especially because Exxon doesn't seem to want to let many people look at what's going on. Twitter to the rescue! There's an account called "Exxon Cares", telling you all that you need to know, and...what's that you say? That's not an Exxon account? Yeah, probably: Tar sands is the chunky peanut butter of oil. #Delicious — Exxon Cares, Y'all (@ExxonCares) April 10, 2013 Exxon d...
CONTINUE READINGKing Coal’s Fading Grip
According to a new study from Duke, coal may be on the way out. as "[l]ow natural gas prices and stricter, federal emission regulations are promoting a shift away from coal power plants and toward natural gas plants as the lowest-cost means of generating electricity in the United States." The authors estimate that "the economic viability of 9% of current coal capacity is challenged by low natural gas prices, while another 56% would be challenged by the stricter emission ...
CONTINUE READINGIn memoriam: Joe Feller, much more than a law professor
Today I learned the sad news that Joe Feller, Professor of Law at Arizona State University, has died after being hit by a car. Joe was a fine scholar (coincidentally, I was reading a terrific piece he wrote on The Adjudication that Ate Arizona Water Law when the news came in), but he was so much more than that. Joe, whose father David was a highly respected labor and civil rights lawyer for two decades before he joined the faculty at Berkeley Law, knew firsthand that (...
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