Archive for November 29th, 2011

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Cute boots!

November 29, 2011

Lynne Kiesling

I haven’t written about shoes in a long time (sorry Manolo!), in large part because my aging, athlete feet can’t tolerate cute shoes to the degree that they used to. My shoe wardrobe vascillates among low-heeled boots, Converse sneakers (with my orthotics in them), and sandals with heel straps and orthopedic footbeds. I try desperately not to descend into frumpy footwear, but the range of footwear styles that I have has narrowed a lot. Grrr. But I still have my love of cowboy boots, although I mix them up with other boots because my Lucchese boots have a narrower toe box than I can tolerate on a daily basis.

So imagine my aesthetic joy, with a tinge of envy, when I saw the boots that Angus is getting Mrs. Angus for Christmas:

 

RAWR. WANT. I need another pair of boots like a hole in my head, but what a gorgeous green, and great stitching. WANT. Mrs. Angus is a lucky woman.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

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An SEA meetings coda

November 29, 2011

Lynne Kiesling

John Whitehead already mentioned our joint AERE/USAEE session at the SEA meetings last week. It turned out well, a combination of carbon offsets analysis and electricity market design experiments. Rim Baltaduonis from Gettysburg College presented two different, interesting experimental papers, one on designing rules for enabling contracts for carbon sequestration in soil (which is a tricky and difficult problem), and one on the individual and system effects in an electric power network of different retail contracts (fixed, TOU, RTP with and without real-time information). The latter paper is very interesting and has some results that I’ll definitely want to discuss here, but he’s not distributing it yet, so I’ll bide my time. The third paper was a very elegant and informative model of different aspects of carbon offsets from Heather Klemick at the EPA. The cross-pollination of the environmental/resource economists and the energy economists made for a wide-ranging and interesting discussion. Thanks to John for letting us co-sponsor a session with AERE!

There were several other highlights, including the panel I chaired on research funding in economics, the panel on which I presented a paper that I’ll discuss here after I revise it (the punch line across all of the papers on that panel was “one size does not fit all!”), the Institute for Humane Studies cocktail reception, and the sessions and banquet for the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. A very enjoyable conference.

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , | Comments Off

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Rory Sutherland on subjective meaning

November 29, 2011

Lynne Kiesling

This video of a talk from British marketing expert Rory Sutherland is well worth 27 minutes of your time, especially if you are in any way associated with the electricity industry or its regulation. He uses insights from Ludwig von Mises to explain how human subjective and contextual valuation of alternatives can help businesses and governments make better decisions.

Why do I recommend his talk particularly to my electricity colleagues? Because Sutherland draws a poignant contrast between an engineering approach and a psychological approach to consumer value propositions. He does a great job of explaining why value is subjective and contextual and is not determined by the inputs or the costs associated with producing something. Value is a function of context and perception. Electricity has been so regulated and so dominated by the cost-based engineering approach to production that it has no experience having to think about that fact and incorporate it into business models in the industry. Sutherland helps us to think differently.

Thanks to Sam Bowman at the Adam Smith Institute for the link.

Posted in Economics, Electricity | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

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