Lynne Kiesling Why is it so difficult, in terms of politics and transaction costs, to define and enforce property rights in fish? If we fail to do so, some important fish species are likely to go extinct due to overfishing, such as the bluefin tuna. Migratory fish like the bluefin pose the biggest policy challenges, …
Overfishing and the Impending Collapse of Fisheries Read More »
Michael Giberson After a severe thunderstorm pelted The Village, Oklahoma with “golf ball- to grapefruit-size hail,” leaving almost all of the 5000 or so homes in the town in need of roof and other repairs, the city council voted to increase the cost of a building permit from $110 to $150. A couple of folks …
Is a Post-disaster Building Permit Fee Increase an Example of Price Gouging? Read More »
Michael Giberson At Constructive Economics, Abe Othman discusses a purported manipulation attempt in Intrade’s Health Care Reform bill market. The nut of the story is that early on March 17th a trader apparently poured a bit of money into the market, briefly driving the price from around 60 down to 35. After a few hours …
When Will Manipulation of Public Prediction Markets Begin to Work? Read More »
Michael Giberson News headlines say, “Orlando wants to prevent gas price gouging,” though the practice Orlando politicians want to stop isn’t price gouging, per se. Rather, the target of the proposal is gasoline retailers near Orlando International Airport who charge substantially higher gasoline prices than neighboring stations. The proposal would require gasoline stations near the …
Orlando Wants to Discourage High Gas Prices Near the Airport Read More »
Lynne Kiesling On Friday at Environmental Economics, Tim Haab wrote about the implications of New Source Review for innovation in a regulated industry, and how to represent it in the standard Pigouvian model (do go read the whole post, it’s very useful). The basic question is this: does the stifling of innovation that results from …
Electricity Generation, New Source Review, and Waste Read More »
Michael Giberson I found this discussion of spot oil prices, futures prices, and commodity storage to be insightful: [R]ecent evidence suggests that the combination of derivative prices and storage stabilized rather than destabilized the oil markets. Indeed, during the run up in oil prices at the beginning of 2008 the spot price for oil was …
Derivatives Markets, Storage and Price Volatility Read More »
Michael Giberson Everyone loves a good story, it seems. Maybe too much. Three U-Mass researchers have detailed the overwhelming influence of anecdotal information in decision making, even less-than-adequate anecdotes presented alongside directly relevant and authoritative statistical information. The research also looks at two strategies that mitigate some of the influence of anecdotal bias, priming a …
When Stories Compete with Statistics for Attention, Stories Win Read More »
Michael Giberson Felix Salmon had an op-ed in New York Times on Hollywood’s opposition to the trading of future’s contracts based on box office receipts. Salmon said: In the 1950s, onion growers were often shocked at the low prices they were getting. Casting around for a villain to blame, they alighted on derivatives traders, and …
Lynne Kiesling If you like to cook and to eat well in Chicago, you can’t avoid chef Grant Achatz (nor should you want to!). His signature restaurant, Alinea, was recently named the best restaurant in the U.S. and one of the best restaurants in the world, and he is a creative, if controversial, innovator of …
Dynamic Pricing for Foodies … and for Electricity? Read More »
Michael Giberson Windpower Monthly has a great article describing changes in the market for transmission capacity between power systems in Europe and the benefits of the changes. Here is a summary by way of selected quotes, but the full story is worth reading: Most of the electricity cables connecting Europe were built when electricity systems …
The Right Market Design for Trade Between Power Markets Read More »
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