Politics

Digging into the Resource Curse: Research into Oil Revenue and Brazilian Municipalities

2 Comments / Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson A paper by Francesco Caselli and Guy Michaels, “Do Oil Windfalls Improve Living Standards? Evidence from Brazil,” takes a closer look at the how the resource curse works its anti-magic. (Ungated version here.) The abstract: We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find …

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Those Leaked Emails, and the Politicization of Climate Science

2 Comments / Economics, Environmental policy, Politics / By

Lynne Kiesling If you have not been following the story of leaked emails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit after their computers were hacked, Maggie Koerth-Baker’s Boing Boing post provides an overview with lots of supporting links. A couple of good overview stories are from the Economist’s most recent issue …

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Appliance Sales to Get ‘cash for Clunkers’ Boost? (2)

2 Comments / Electricity, Environmental policy, Politics / By

Michael Giberson In August we took note of stories indicating that appliance sales were going to get a “cash for clunkers”-like boost.  James Hamilton at Econbrowser offers updated discussion, links, and commentary: Here is the description of the program from the Energy Department (hat tip: King Banaian): In late 2009 or early 2010, you may …

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“Hayek’s Legacy … is Still Brightly Promoted”

3 Comments / Economics, Liberty, Politics / By

Michael Giberson Al Roth, at Market Design, points out an inadvertently amusing column from The Guardian a few weeks back, “Our speechless outrage demands a new language of the common good.” The writer, Madeleine Bunting, asserts that economists of a certain sort (namely, Friedrich Hayek and his associates at Chicago in the 50s) came to …

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Designing Federal Programs That Work

2 Comments / Energy markets, Politics, Regulation / By

Michael Giberson From Government Executive: As Washington considers an overhaul of the nation’s health care system affecting roughly one-seventh of our economy, a critical question arises: How effective are we at crafting legislation that can be implemented? To answer this question, we partnered with Government Executive in 2008 to survey members of the Senior Executive …

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Ghana and Its Newfound Oil: Can It Use the Alaska Model to Avoid the Resource Curse?

Economics, Energy markets, Liberty, Politics / By

Michael Giberson A discovery of significant amounts of oil in Ghana has inspired a great deal of inquiry into how the country can avoid falling victim to the “resource curse,” the surprisingly low levels of economic development and weakening of political and social institutions sometimes associated with discovery and exploitation of valuable natural resources. In …

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Taxpayer Dollars to Support Utility Smart Grid Expenses

1 Comment / Electricity, Politics / By

Michael Giberson Rebecca Smith reporting in the Wall Street Journal, “Obama to Name ‘Smart Grid’ Projects“: The Obama administration is expected Tuesday to name 100 utility projects that will share $3.4 billion in federal stimulus funding to speed deployment of advanced technology designed to cut energy use and make the electric-power grid more robust. When …

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Attorneys General in Virginia and North Carolina Continue to Prosecute Hurricane Ike Price Gouging Cases

2 Comments / Energy markets, Politics / By

Michael Giberson Another few price gouging cases settled by the Attorneys General of Virginia and North Carolina arising from complaints filed during Hurricane Ike in September 2008.  From North Carolina, via the AG’s press release: Cooper filed suit in October of 2008 against Steve Compton, owner and manager of Tire Pro, also known as Troy …

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New Transmission Lines Are the Last Thing Renewable Power Needs, Says John Harrell

5 Comments / Electricity, Politics / By

Michael Giberson On Marc Gunther’s blog, a guest post by John Harrell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that the “last thing renewable energy needs right now are new transmission lines.”  The view is not, he admits, shared by folks in the renewable energy business.  The ILSR has a second edition out of a …

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