Michael Giberson Preston McAfee and Tracy Lewis introduce Coasian bargaining in their economics textbook with the question, “Can I just bribe my neighbor to stop being annoying?” The complementary question, perhaps asked by the neighbor in question, “Can I just bribe my neighbor to stop being annoyed (or at least not to complain about me)?” …
Michael Giberson Matthew Wald at the New York Times Green blog reports on the Bonneville Power Administration’s problem of having too much water and wind power at the same time. For about 5 days in early June, storms producing wind and rainwater led to a lot of wind power and too much water in the …
Michael Giberson Tom Konrad examines the question, “Will PACE financing damage the mortgage market? PACE is “Property Assessed Clean Energy” financing, a financing mechanism through which cities sell bonds and then loan the proceeds to property owners to improve building energy efficiency. As noted here previously, I’m not opposed to the PACE approach to investments …
Michael Giberson From Michael Hiltzik, in the Los Angeles Times, “The false promise of Hoover Dam.” Hiltzik provides a good summary of the political promises and pretenses that allowed the dam to be built in the first place. He then examines the competing demands for the current and future use of the dam. I liked …
Michael Giberson From Aaron Smith, econoblogging at the Christian Science Monitor, speaking of government intervention into the economy and capping “excessive” salaries in particular. (Note that the first sentence is explicating typical arguments made by other folks, not Smith’s own view. The very good sentence is the one that follows.): The money saved from capping …
Michael Giberson Competitive retail power company NRG plans to offer an “all you can eat” electric vehicle recharging plan in Houston early next year, expanding the offer to the Dallas area a little later. Likely too few electric vehicles will show up in Houston in the next year or so to make much of a …
Electric Vehicle Recharging: Is the Energy Too Cheap to Meter? Read More »
Michael Giberson Hadn’t actually thought of the rules of professional sports leagues as a market design issue before, but Richard Epstein’s column in Forbes proposing rule changes for soccer suggests the idea. Epstein suggests a couple of changes, drawing on basketball and hockey for inspiration: First, he says goals scored in the run of play …
Michael Giberson The World Cup is well underway, and with it another controversy over the new ball designed by Adidas for the tournament. The Wikipedia page on the ball documents some of the complaints, as usual most of them from goalkeepers: As with the Adidas Fevernova and Adidas Teamgeist at the two previous tournaments, the ball has …
Rejoice: Another World Cup, Another Ball Controversy Read More »
Michael Giberson Georg Zachmann, writing at the EU Energy Policy Blog, asks, “How integrated are European electricity markets?” At least in the case of the German market, the answer seems to be not so much. (For comparison, here is a paper by John Bower that seeks to assess power market integration in Europe as of …
How Integrated Are European Electricity Markets? Read More »
Michael Giberson In Arizona, solar power installation company SolarCity has been told it must be regulated as a public utility if it employs a financing arrangement it has developed, a “solar services agreement,” to sell its services to non-profit entities. Usually SolarCity builds solar power systems and provides financing and ongoing monitoring services, but doesn’t …
When Should a Solar Power Installer Be Treated Like a Regulated Public Utility? Read More »
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