Environmental Economics
The cromulent economics blog
recent posts
Category: Microeconomics
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At our most basic, economists are trying to solve a complex allocation problem: Given a scarce amount of resources, how do we decide who gets what, when and how? In solving the allocation problem, most economists focus on allocations of society’s scarce resources that meet the social goal of maximizing the well-being of society. Because…
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I just finished reading a great book that substantially changed how I think about economics – "Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality" by James Kwak. In a nutshell, the book describes "economism" – which has also been called "Econ 101ism". It is the over-reliance on basic microeconomic principles (the kind I teach in…
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WSJ (Saudis Plan New Export Cuts in Hopes of Lifting Oil to $80 a Barrel): Saudi Arabia is planning to cut crude exports to around 7.1 million barrels a day by the end of January in hopes of lifting oil prices above $80 a barrel, according to OPEC officials. The new strategy comes as the…
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I recently got around to reading the 2010 book "Identity Economics: How our Identities Shape our Work, Wages, and Well-Being," by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton. It is a lay summary of some of the work that Akerlof and Kranton have been doing to incorporate identity and social norms into economic modeling of decision-making. Basically,…
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The Legislature of the State of Ohio is currently considering legislation to reduce Phosphorous loadings into Lake Erie by 40%. This is a good thing, as reducing Phosphorous going into Lake Erie will reduce the incidence and impact of Harmful Algal Blooms in the Western Lake Erie Basin. The proposed legislation establishes a Clean Lake…
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Since most of the major news outlets (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, Drudge (?),…) spend all of their time having partisan shouting matches, I thought I would update everyone on some ongoing economic and environmental trends, without mentioning or crediting or discrediting the contribution to those trends by any particular President past or present. I will leave…
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We're working on PhD recruitment this week (if you applied to OSU AEDE and were accepted, join us, we're FUN!). I put together a Google map with our PhD placements since 2007. A bit scary that I might be influencing thinking for this many people and this wide an area.
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FiveThirtyEight's assessment of President Trump's first year: The upshot? Few dramatic changes in either direction. Jobs in the manufacturing and coal mining industries ticked up, the trade deficit shrank a bit, and the number of murders in some big cities decreased. The uninsurance rate got worse — the only change in the opposite direction of…
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There's a well known result in Econ 101 (I need to write this chapter for Env-Econ 1010 sometime) that if the demand for a good is elastic*, lowering the price will increase revenues, and vice-versa. If the demand is inelastic, then lowering the price lowers revenue. Unfortunately it's rare to get a nice clean real…
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