Lynne Kiesling One of the hallmarks of smart grid technology is how it enables and reduces the cost of two-way communication. In electricity as in other industries, digital communication technology makes it possible and easy to have two-way communication, and to use that communication capability to automate individual actions. As we have seen throughout society …
A Smart Grid is a Transactive Grid (Part 2 of 5) Read More »
Lynne Kiesling This week I’ll be writing a series of posts about smart grid technology, economics, and policy. The buzz around the idea of smart grid is palpable: old companies like GE and new companies like Google are changing their business models to incorporate more smart grid activities and products, entrepreneurs are exploring new products …
Smart Grid Technology, Economics, and Policy (Part 1 of 5) Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The fundamental cause of most environmental problems — whether air pollution, climate change, or species extinction, for example — is ill-defined property rights. Ill-define property rights lead to inefficient resource use decisions, resource overuse, and accelerated resource use. The effect of human action on the rate and pattern of species extinction is an …
Lynne Kiesling [UPDATED to add live link to NPR story} NPR just ran a story on yesterday’s clean energy summit in Washington DC. The event was organized by Senator Harry Reid and included such luminaries as Boone Pickens, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, in addition to political representatives such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Secretary …
Smart Grid Rhetoric at Yesterday’s Clean Energy Summit Read More »
Lynne Kiesling At the Atlantic’s newish business web site, Greg Clark has a very good post on the history of government spending in Britain. He starts in the early post-Magna Carta period: In England, for example, from the Magna Carta of 1215 until the Glorious Revolution of 1689, public debt was always tiny — a …
An Economic History Lesson on Fiscal Responsibility Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I am co-organizing an event called GridEcon in Chicago, 16-17 March 2009. GridEcon is in the suite of events that the GridWise Architecture Council co-sponsors, including GridWeek, Connectivity Week, and Grid-Interop. GridEcon has come about because we think that the policy and business discussions have moved beyond the technical interoperability issues that have …
Lynne Kiesling In 1983 Bruce Yandle wrote an influential article in Regulation, “Bootleggers and Baptists: The Education of a Regulatory Economist”. His model explains how two parties with seemingly incongruent values can come together to get a regulation passed that meets the objectives of both parties. In the bootlegger and Baptist case, both parties benefit …
The Continuing Relevance of the Bootlegger-And-Baptist Model Read More »
Lynne Kiesling For the past couple of years the British government has been extremely aggressive in installing surveillance cameras — CCTV on high streets, speeding cameras on highways, and so on. If you are a typical British citizen, your actions are captured on camera hundreds of times a day, and you can be watched with …
British Government Desire for Surveillance Expropriates Private Property Read More »
Lynne Kiesling [sorry for the pun-ed.] In doing my morning reading I find posts at EconLog from both Arnold Kling and David Henderson that are in line with my thoughts on government bailouts and increasing anger and frustration. Arnold says Starting last September, our country has gone through six months that shook the world. We …
Lynne Kiesling Count me in as a taxpayer, mortgage holder, and economist who thinks that the Obama mortgage bailout program is bad policy-it’s expensive with little obvious benefit, it creates bad incentives and ex post rewards bad decisions (bad decisions that were abetted by bad government policy), and it’s morally reprehensible. Peter Klein’s remarks on …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive