Paul Krugman
The Uneasy Case for NIMBYism
A Growing Class Conflict Lurks Underneath the Land Use Debate
Paul Krugman is turning his attention to housing affordability, and the results as usual are salutary. When discussing the skyrocketing cost of housing in New York City, he observes: There’s still room to build, even in New York, especially upward. Yet while there is something of a building boom in the city, it’s far smaller …
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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 …
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CONTINUE READINGSenator Rubio Goes to Moscow
In Internet time, it’s already an old story, but worth repeating. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Tea Party guy, was asked in a GQ interview how old he believes the earth is. His reply: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, …
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CONTINUE READINGSelf-Reliant Moocher Hypocrites
The Shrill One has an interesting post on “self-reliant moochers,” i.e. those states (and voters) who loudly proclaim their flinty self-reliance and then rely on government transfers. Turns out that conservative states rely much more heavily on government transfers than Blue staters supposedly addicted to the “cradle-to-grave assurance government will always be the solution.” …
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CONTINUE READINGOzone: Three More Comments
1) Ann argues persuasively that Obama’s decision was terrible politics. But it is also terrible economics. As the Shrill One pointed out the other day, we are currently in a liquidity trap, i.e. there is not enough demand in the economy to pull us out of the recession, and a lot of money is simply …
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CONTINUE READINGGambling on Climate Change
Paul Krugman had a great article about climate change in the NY Times magazine on Sunday. It provides a really useful primer on the economics of climate change. In particular, Krugman emphasizes that uncertainty is a reason for action, not a reason to to allow unchecked global warming: We’re uncertain about the magnitude of climate …
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CONTINUE READINGTaking sides on Waxman-Markey
Now that the revised Waxman-Markey compromise draft has been make public (here), those in favor of strong climate change regulation are soul-searching about whether to support it. Did Waxman give away too much — on, among other things, free allowances to industry, reduced caps, and lessened requirements for ramping up renewable energy sources (see Steve’s post …
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