Economics – Page 169 – Knowledge Problem

Competition And Choice Benefit Those Who Exercise It

Lynne Kiesling Yesterday the Houston Chronicle ran a commentary from Texas PUC Commissioner Barry Smitherman arguing that retail choice and competition benefits customers: Consumers who actively shop for electricity are reaping the benefits of competition while those who, for whatever reason, remain with the incumbent provider are not. Lower electricity prices are available to all …

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An Eloquent Argument For Puhca’s Repeal

10 Comments / Economics, Electricity / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I’m going to answer jdr’s comment about PUHCA from yesterday’s post about the Senate energy bill here instead of in comments. I am neither so foolish or so presumptuous that I think I can prognosticate the effects of PUHCA repeal, but based on some simple economics of organization and financial markets, I think …

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Conflicted About Grokster

3 Comments / Economics, Music, Networks / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I don’t have much to say about Grokster because I’m of many minds about it. Turns out I’m not alone; Tyler says economists should feel conflicted about peer-to-peer file sharing. One aspect of Tyler’s argument is what I call the “relevant and irrelevant externality” argument. Will file sharing reduce economic efficiency, leading to …

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Energy Bill To Conference: Now The Tough Work Begins

5 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Energy markets / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling The Senate approved its version of the energy bill, which differs substantially from the House version. That means that the hard work remains to be done in conference. Many of the electricity provisions are common to both, so are unlikely to change. I have no great objections to the electricity provisions; I am …

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More Good Kelo Analyses

3 Comments / Economics, Liberty / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Lest you think that I’ve become a one-trick pony and can think of nothing else except Kelo, I offer this justification for my attention to it: this is such a big deal that even people who don’t normally pay attention to such things are paying attention and are outraged. All sorts of people …

KP Housecleaning

Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Spent a lazy Sunday morning doing some online housecleaning, including the following: -Subscribed to Feed Burner and added RSS feed links to the Syndication menu -Removing dead links, updating others, and adding some reads that are on my regular routine, notably The Glittering Eye and The Capital Spectator. Both are sites I read …

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More Good Kelo Commentary

3 Comments / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Not surprisingly, there’s lots of good, eloquent analysis of yesterday’s Supreme Court Kelo decision. Tyler says that the decision illustrates why he’s not a pure utilitarian. Will concisely says what I was too emotionally wound up and too pressed to get to a plane to say yesterday: That is, if you have something …

Supreme Court Kelo Decision An Economic Travesty And Injustice

7 Comments / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling I was disgusted to hear that cities may seize private property for private development. In February I posted this discussion of the Kelo arguments. As the AP article states: As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate …

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New Energy Currents At Winds Of Change

2 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Energy markets / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling John Atkinson’s New Energy Currents post over at Winds of Change is up. What a great resource. Just the information on the biofuel technologies alone is worth the read. And thanks to him for his link here! I’m up for a KP speaking tour, we just need to find the bucks. California is …

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