Lynne Kiesling I’m teaching a principles/intro class this quarter (for the first time in longer than I care to remember!), and my students are all very clear on a concept that I’m afraid President Obama has forgotten … or at least that his rhetoric contradicts: economic activity is not a win-lose relationship. Using language like …
Lynne Kiesling With apologies to my colleague Mark Witte for plagiarizing him … we were discussing how the EU has had to suspend their carbon emission permit trading system (I wouldn’t dignify it by calling it a market) due to online security breaches and the theft of millions of Euros worth of permits. Mark asked …
What Has the Eu Ever Done for Us? Carbon Edition Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As I’ve mentioned before, I am passionately and actively opposed to the TSA’s fear-based violations of the rights and dignity of individuals. But my opposition extends beyond the moral and philosophical into the economic … and some recent commentaries indicate that I am not the only one! First let’s think about the cost …
Lynne Kiesling As an addendum to Mike’s post Monday about Evergreen Solar and Ed Glaeser’s comments, note that WW at The Economist’s Democracy in America blog has also posted some remarks on the subject. In particular, he focuses on the use (or uselessness) of solar technology subsidies as social policy: If subsidies for solar-panel manufactures …
Lynne Kiesling Like other economists, I was intrigued by President Obama’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about streamlining federal regulation. Like Matthew Kahn, I see the influence of Austan Goolsbee here, as well as Cass Sunstein; like Tim Haab, I think this is a salutary call for more, and more consistent, application of cost-benefit …
Is Rationalizing Regulation Even Possible Through Political Processes? Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I have been a too-silent opponent of the Patriot Act’s authorization of invasive surveillance in the name of national security. One of the consequences of that authorization has been the growth of the Department of Homeland Security and, under it, the formation and growth of the TSA. Those of us who travel frequently …
The Tsa’s Wholesale Violation of Our Civil Rights, Including Economic Liberty Read More »
Lynne Kiesling In early December I had the pleasure of delivering some lunch remarks at the Grid-Interop conference in Chicago. Grid-Interop is a great place for those interested in innovation in the electricity industry to share ideas about technology, business models, the interoperability that enables such creativity, and the role of economic regulation in how …
My Grid-interop Talk: Regulation’s Role in Stifling Innovation Read More »
Lynne Kiesling At Grist, Sean Casten muses on the macroeconomic implications of trends in electricity consumption. His musings focus on the established correlation between electricity consumption and economic activity, an association that he fleshed out in an earlier post. In these two posts he looks at trends in residential, commercial, and industrial electricity consumption over …
Macroeconomic Implications of Residential Electricity Consumption Read More »
Lynne Kiesling Over the past few weeks I’ve been paying some attention to the increasing, and spreading, bedbug infestations in the U.S. I’m not particularly squeamish, but bedbugs are rapacious colony-dwelling critters that can survive for a year without food, feast on the blood of sleeping animals (humans YUM YUM), and colonize easily in mattresses …
Bedbugs, Public Policy, and Relative Risk Assessment Read More »
Lynne Kiesling I recently recommended Joel Mokyr’s The Enlightened Economy and mentioned that I was going to have a more lengthy discussion of it soon. I still have things I want to say about it, but Trevor Butterworth fills some of the void with his review in the Wall Street Journal. Butterworth has some pointed …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive