Lynne Kiesling Reason’s Jeff Taylor has written an article that gives some insight into the history and motivation behind the current listener-based royalty rates that will go into effect on Sunday, unless a last-minute compromise occurs. Turns out digital is not perfect. Digital can be crap. And a perfect digital copy of perfect crap is …
Michael Giberson A Swiss software security research company, WabiSabiLabi, is establishing an online auction site to allow security researchers to auction off discoveries of software vulnerabilities. In their press release, they said: Recently it was reported that although researchers had analyzed a little more than 7,000 publicly disclosed vulnerabilities last year, the number of new …
Auction Seeks to Provide Competitive Prices for the Discovery of Network Goods Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Ted Samson at InfoWorld’s Sustainable IT blog had a pretty thorough post last week about smart grid technology and its economic and operational value. Essentially, a smart grid is an intelligent electricity-delivery system, through which energy suppliers and consumers are all interconnected through a network. Smart meters are installed at homes and business …
Lynne Kiesling Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal had an article by Rebecca Smith that discussed some of the most innovative residential electricity service offerings in the country. She accurately points out how the combination of dynamic pricing and innovative end-user technology can empower residential customers to observe their actual electricity use, control their own behavior, and …
Pricing and Technology Combine To Help Consumers Manage Energy Costs Read More »
Lynne Kiesling How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor is an article in the May/June 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs by Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer. It’s a well-written, thorough analysis of the widespread effects of government policies favoring biofuels. Their focus is international, discussing EU initiatives on biodiesel as well as Brazil’s experience with cane-based …
Michael Giberson The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an excellent story about the PJM electric power market, market performance on high demand days, and the growing interest in managing demand by engaging consumers. Excerpts: It was at 4 p.m. last Aug. 2, toward the end of a midsummer heat wave, when the Philadelphia region’s power-plant fleet began …
Every Consumer Benefits from Small Reductions in Peak Demand Read More »
Michael Giberson I cross-posted “Deep-Pocketed Manipulators are a Prediction Market’s Friend” at prediction market group blog Midas Oracle, where it generated a counter post from Stanford prof. Eric Zitzewitz, “Is Manipulation Good for a Prediction Market? Accuracy Isn’t Everything.” I replied with “What should be Done about Manipulation of Prediction Markets?” Also of note, a …
Lynne Kiesling A few mergers have been in the news recently, including the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger that the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Trade Commission has decided it will challenge. In February I commented that I thought the appropriate market in which both firms compete includes options like Trader Joe’s and community agriculture. Apparently …
Michael Giberson Online magazine Slate has published the Tim Hartford column on possible manipulation of the “H. Clinton becomes President in 2008” prediction market at Intrade. (Yes, the same column that appeared June 29 at the Financial Times , and blogged about here on July 1.) On this topic, Slate is late and even the …
Deep-pocketed Manipulators Are a Prediction Market’s Friend Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Yeah, what he said. I agree with Mike’s previous post about real-world detail and experimental economics (and thanks for mentioning the Electricity Journal article!). The wind tunnel metaphor is apt for the use of experimental economics to test market designs and policy proposals; testing them in an environment that captures the most salient …
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