Economics – Page 20 – Knowledge Problem

Lifecycle Analysis: Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles Ambiguous

4 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Environmental policy / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling A forthcoming article in the Journal of Industrial Ecology reports on a lifecycle analysis comparing electric vehicles with internal combustion vehicles (at the moment the full article is available for our edification!). This thorough analysis looks at the resource use and environmental impact of the production, use, and disposal of the vehicle. From …

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Hobbes’ Leviathan is 350 Years Old!

Books, Economics, Law / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Actually it’s over 350 years old, but as the Economist points out this week, there’s a new critical edition of Leviathan for the first time in 350 years. The Economist article is a good reminder that what was shocking about Hobbes in the 17th century — his mechanistic materialism — isn’t quite as …

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It’s Nobel Week!

1 Comment / Economics / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Got any bets in any Nobel pools? Calling up any of your chemist friends and putting on a fake Swedish accent? Yes, it’s that time again, when the 2012 Nobel prizes are announced. I have no predictions or inclinations for this year’s economics prize, but I’d be interested in yours if you’ve got …

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Yes, Our Patent System is Broken

4 Comments / Economics, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling In yesterday’s New York Times, Charles Duhigg and Steve Lohr have a detailed, thorough article analyzing the myriad ways that our traditional patent system is ill-suited to beneficial innovation processes in technology. Here’s a taste, but you should really read the whole thing, as I will be having my freshman seminar students do …

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Are New Jersey ‘outsiders’ More Likely to Be Accused of Price Gouging?

Economics, Energy markets, Law / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson A few weeks ago I posted “Are ‘outsiders’ more likely to be accused of price gouging?” Having noticed that all four persons arrested in Mississippi for price gouging after Hurricane Isaac had surnames indicating family origins in India, I wondered about the potential for discrimination in the application of price gouging laws. First, …

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Coasean Taxes and Other Energy Economics Stories

5 Comments / Economic history, Economics, Energy markets, Environmental policy / By Michael Giberson

Michael Giberson Of note. Daniel Cole, “Thinking About an Optimal Coase Tax” “Economists have spilled a lot of ink trying to specify what an ‘optimal’ Pigou tax would be… Haven’t any of these people read Coase (I mean read him carefully)? One of his explicit aims in ‘The Problem of Social Cost’ (1960) was to correct an …

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Antitrust and Google Search Bias

2 Comments / Economics, Technology / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling For the past year and a half the Federal Trade Commission has been investigating the potential anti-competitive effects of Google’s search-based business model. The European Union has also been pursuing antitrust complaints against Google. The main accusation is Google search bias — Google’s algorithm prioritizes links both to paid advertisers (which are shaded …

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Just How “Wasteful” Are Data Centers?

8 Comments / Economics, Electricity / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling You may have seen the article in Sunday’s New York Times on how “wasteful” data centers are — they use large amounts of electricity to enable the level of redundancy required to achieve the degree of reliability and uptime that consumers expect from their Internet activities. I put the word “waste” in quotes …

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Dolan on the Wptc and Energy Policy

26 Comments / Economics, Environmental policy / By Lynne Kiesling

Lynne Kiesling Economist Ed Dolan makes a thorough argument for using the upcoming expiration of the wind production tax credit as an opportunity to rethink energy policy seriously. In particular, his combined focus on energy policy and tax policy, and whether such tax credits are good examples of either (guess what? No), makes for an …

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Enron and Crony Corporatism

3 Comments / Economics, Electricity, Regulation / By Knowledge Problem

Lynne Kiesling Rob Bradley has an Econlib essay on Enron, and it’s a good one. He focuses on Enron’s particular form of crony corporatism, its ability to take advantage of regulatory complexity, and the lessons that we should carry forward from the experience: Enron was essentially a political company, not a free-market one. Ken Lay’s creation …

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