Economics – Page 119 – Knowledge Problem

Happy Travels? Will Federal Policy Bring Economics to Airports?

3 Comments / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Today’s a big national travel day, and many of us are flying about. Painful. As we’ve discussed here before, airport takeoff-landing slot congestion pricing would be the most sensible and efficiency-promoting policy, but the FAA, Congress, and the airlines are not inclined to implement anything sensible or efficiency-promoting. One of the outgrowths of …

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Prices Aren’t Always Property

1 Comment / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I have a question, or qualification, of Mike’s excellent post about prices as property the other day. What about the string of court rulings that allow Intercontinental Exchange to use NYMEX’s market prices for ICE’s transaction settlements? Isn’t that equivalent to declaring that NYMEX does not have a property right in its own …

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High Gas Prices: Demand-driven

9 Comments / Economics, Energy markets / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I am so in professional platonic love with Tim Haab right now that it’s not even funny. This Environmental Economics post is so wonderful on so many levels: So let’s take a quick look the basics and then use it to explain why the current high gas prices are your fault. … The …

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Making Use of Captured Carbon

9 Comments / Economics, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I’ve been waiting for something like this for years! A company called Blue Source has a potentially commercially viable carbon capture business model that involves the captured CO2 actually being useful: Blue Source is piping industrial carbon dioxide from a natural-gas processing plant in southeastern Colorado to an undisclosed oil producer that will, …

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Prices Are Information Goods, and Information Wants to Be Expensive, Because It’s So Valuable

4 Comments / Economic history, Economics / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson I know the internet mantra “information wants to be free,” the bane of many copyright holders. Macy’s, among many others, is one retail Goliath fighting against the free flow of information online. The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse posted online a copy of Macy’s letter to bfads.net, the “David” in this David and Goliath story, …

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Gridlock! Drew Carey and Reason.tv on Road Pricing

2 Comments / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling In the five-plus years of Knowledge Problem’s existence, one of the topics on which I have opined extensively is the efficiency and conservation benefits of congestion pricing. Recently, Mike had two great posts on congestion pricing, one on how economists don’t understand the opposition to congestion pricing, and one on the unwillingness of …

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Solar Panels and Recycled Silicon

Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Silicon is an important input into solar panels, as well as its well-known uses in computer chips. Not surprisingly, silicon prices have risen over the past couple of years. A couple of weeks ago IBM announced that it has figured out a way to scrub information from waste silicon chips so they can …

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Candy As A Gateway Drug

Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Been really busy lately with the day job, but I didn’t want to miss Dave Weigel’s Reason Hit & Run post on candy as a gateway drug: High school rules banning sweet stuff have created a lucrative and illicit trade for sucrose. Who could have predicted it? Why is it so difficult for …

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Nfl Wants to Support Secondary Market for Tickets, New England Patriots Want to Punish Ticket Resalers. Also Miley Cyrus Ticket Action.

5 Comments / Economics, Professional sports / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson How many times do we have to say it? Online secondary ticket markets can be good for teams and fans. Fans can buy tickets earlier, knowing if they have a conflict, there is an easy way to recoup at least some of their price. Teams can therefore sell more tickets to fans earlier, …

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He Gets Vaccinated So He Can Get Kissed

3 Comments / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Over at Marginal Revolution Alex reveals that he has gotten a flu shot, and uses that fact to draw out a brief analysis of the external benefits that he does not entirely get to enjoy from his shot: his shot reduces contagion, reducing illness in others, which has only a small benefit that …

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