Lynne Kiesling OK, Manhattan in hand … here’s an analysis that improves on the first one. I’ve taken the ratio of [gasoline price x gasoline quantity] to median household income. The gasoline quantity data are from Table 5.13a of the DOE’s Annual Energy Review 2004, in thousands of barrels. Table 5.13a reports “estimated petroleum consumption, …
An Even Better Statistic on Gasoline Household Spending Read More »
Lynne Kiesling OK, here’s the data to show that relative to median household income, gasoline prices have fallen: Data used to create figure: Median household income data for 1980-2000 from Table H-11 of Census historical statistics, in current dollars Median household income data for 2001-2003 from Table H-8 of Census statistics from the Current Population …
Lynne Kiesling In KP’s three years of life there’s been a lot of coverage of oil and gasoline markets, and some dominant themes have persisted: The unintended consequences of price caps are usually pernicious. Environmental regulation, in this case in the form of the EPA federal fuel oxygenate requirement, causes balkanization of regional gasoline markets, …
Summary of Reasons Why Oil and Gasoline Prices Are Currently So High Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I recommend reading Mr. Coyote’s post on the Hawaii price cap over at Coyote Blog. Very nice commentary. And thanks for the kind words!
Lynne Kiesling It’s been brewing for several years, but finally the $66/barrel oil prices have induced Hawaii to impose a cap on the wholesale price of gasoline. On Wednesday, the state’s Public Utilities Commission released its first weekly list of price caps for different parts of the state. Including taxes, the maximum wholesalers in Honolulu …
Michael Giberson As the price of a product goes up, so does the propensity of politicians to want to do something. Gasoline prices are up, and here come the politicians. The Senate Energy Committee has announced it will be holding hearings in September. And now comes the Bush administration with a proposal to revise and …
Lynne Kiesling Check out this Wired article about methane capture from a trash dump in Bangaledesh. Methane capture technology can serve three objectives here: generating power, improving the utilization of the dump, and creating fertilizer that can enrich the thin soil in the area. When it gets going, this system can produce enough electricity to …
Lynne Kiesling James Hamilton’s recent discussion of Chinese oil demand mentions the government actions to subsidize oil consumption to fuel economic growth (yikes, what a far-flung distortion!). A WSJ article (subscription required) from Wednesday describes the consequences of China’s refined fuel subsidies: shortages and queues. Drivers in southern China have been queuing for as long …
Lynne Kiesling One of the beautiful and often-overlooked things about human action and exchange is not just comparative advantage. It’s the dynamic changes in comparative advantage as the environment changes. What you do relatively well (and relatively less badly, to really trigger the comparative advantage concept) changes over time, as you change, adapting to the …
Oil And Fuel Price Summary, And Musing On Comparative Advantage Read More »
Lynne Kiesling It came out while I was at a conference and distracted, but here’s this month’s New Energy Currents from John Atkinson at Winds of Change. If you are interested in energy technology and policy, this is a must read. And thanks to John for the links here!
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