Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tires, Nobel Prize, macro debates, and solar cells.

Garth Brazelton defends the tire tax as a Pigouvian tax. I'd be interested to see if there was any data to show that Chinese tires are significantly less safe than American tires. Since they both presumably have to meet some sort of standard, should we just make tougher standards? If Chinese tires are less safe than American tires, would the tax not apply to safe Chinese tires, or would the tax be repealed when Chinese tire makers improved their tires?

Tyler Cowen starts thinking about the Nobel Prize for Economics. I'm eager to see everyone's thoughts.

Krugman talks about freshwater economists while David Warsh says there isn't as much vitriol as we might think. Warsh links us to an interesting paper that thinks about 1978 macro (link to Thoma).

Solar energy is apparently getting off to a slow start. Overinvestment due to a subsidy combined with a recession led to dropping prices, whic wasn't good for the industry. Does that mean we'll see solar energy picking up again as the world recovers? I've been seeing more articles about solar-powered things anyways, so maybe China is picking up a large degree of the slack from Spain.

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