December 2009

Digging into the Resource Curse: Research into Oil Revenue and Brazilian Municipalities

2 Comments / Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson A paper by Francesco Caselli and Guy Michaels, “Do Oil Windfalls Improve Living Standards? Evidence from Brazil,” takes a closer look at the how the resource curse works its anti-magic. (Ungated version here.) The abstract: We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find …

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More Tres Amigas Interconnection Details Revealed in FERC Filings

1 Comment / Electricity, Energy markets / By

Michael Giberson Today Tres Amigas LLC submitted two filings to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, one seeking assurance from FERC that linking the ERCOT system to the proposed interconnection project would not subject ERCOT to FERC jurisdiction, and the other seeking authority to sell transmission services at negotiated rates. According to the filings, affirmative answers …

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New Sharing Button

Miscellany / By

Lynne Kiesling I’ve added an AddThis “share this blog” button to the right sidebar, which allows you to link to KP from just about every imaginable form of social media. We hope you will!

The Devil’s Dictionary Meme Applied to Climate Politics and to Financial Markets

2 Comments / Economics / By

Lynne Kiesling Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a true literary gem. Also known as the “cynic’s word book”, it complies witty and biting definitions that Bierce contributed to magazines starting in the 1880s, with all of the bluntness and prejudices that you would expect (in other words, if Bierce were writing today he’d certainly offend …

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This American Life/planet Money and Market Dynamics

1 Comment / Economics / By

Lynne Kiesling I’ve mentioned NPR’s Planet Money before, specifically their story on the history of employer-provided health insurance. They do a good job (not perfect, but good) of exploring economics topics for a general audience; they did some very good reporting on the underlying macroeconomic issues in the financial crisis earlier this year (although they …

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Bars Take Donations to Pay Smoking Fines

11 Comments / Economics / By

Lynne Kiesling Here’s an illustration of several important economic points. Illinois instituted a smoking ban in bars and restaurants in January 2008. One of the arguments for such smoking bans is to spare patrons and employees the negative effects of second-hand smoke. Clearly such a blanket ban has some negative unintended consequences that reduce economic …

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