Lynne Kiesling On Wednesday the U.S. House passed a gasoline price gouging bill. The bill’s chief sponsor, Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, said he had no doubt the FTC would be able to determine price gouging once the agency had a law to uphold. The measure would establish the first federal law against energy …
Lynne Kiesling You driving anywhere this weekend? I’m not. Other than a trip to the grocery store, I hope not to get in the car at all. In part that’s the high gas prices talking, but in part it’s a rebound from the fact that I spent the last three days at a conference out …
Memorial Day Driving, Gas Prices, and Retail Sales Read More »
Michael Giberson On prediction market group blog Midas Oracle (and also posted at the NewsFuture blog), Emile Servan-Schreiber offers an assessment of “prediction markets vs. the pundits” after the French presidential campaign debate between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy: After the debate, the pundits were all agreed that Royal had scored some points, and even …
Prediction Markets Vs. the Pundits in the French Election Read More »
Michael Giberson The tech trade press seems abuzz with speculation over Google’s interest in the FCC’s spectrum auction rules. Google phone? Google wireless? Google the spectrum monopolist? Google turning your cell phone into a mobile AdWords delivery device? All of this wild-eyed speculation seems a bit over the top to me, perhaps because the essential …
Michael Giberson Google filed a proposal on Monday with the Federal Communications Commission calling on the agency to let companies allocate radio spectrum using the same kind of real-time auction that the search engine company now uses to sell advertisements. The NYTimes article is a little short on the technical details of the proposal (I …
Michael Giberson At EconTalk, Russ Roberts talks with experimental economics pioneer Vernon Smith. It is a friendly interview, Roberts doesn’t hit Smith with tough questions or challenge his explanations, but it is a good introduction to Smith’s views on the field and its development.
Lynne Kiesling Glen Whitman has a nice analysis of gasoline expenditure as a share of household income. Note that he shows, by income quintile, how the cost of traveling 25,000 miles in a year fell from 1981 to 2000, and that although it rose through 2005 and fell back a bit in 2006, it is …
Gas Prices: Mobility Cost As Percent of Household Budget Has Fallen Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Harvard economist Ed Glaeser has a nice column in today’s Boston Globe in which he proposes a “road map for environmentalism” (HT to Greg Mankiw). I think it’s a thoughtful and substantially correct analysis and pragmatic set of proposals; in particular, his emphasis on the importance of rethinking current policies and the extent …
Lynne Kiesling Three cheers for Tim Haab for saying what I’m often too lazy or too cowardly to say: So let’s take a look at the STUPID price gouging bill… So we’ve now proven that Democrats are idiots. We’re halfway there. … Republicans are idiots. Since independents don’t matter, I conclude my proof. All politicians …
Tim Haab on the Politics of Gas Prices: Get Over It Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As economic growth continues to drive up demand for petroleum-based energy, foreign supplies are fraught with geopolitical costs, and concerns about the environmental effects of fuel use increase, energy prices rise and we naturally seek out alternatives to the oil we’ve become accustomed to using over the past century. One potentially attractive option …
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