Krugman explains the basics of cap-and-trade.
Here's a handy little tool from IBM to facilitate data visualization. Looks neat!
And, if you didn't know about this before, but there's an open-access Economics journal. There look to be some really neat articles in there.
In the same vein, here's an econblog aggregator to keep up with research and academic blogs. Thanks to RePEc.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Climate Change: A devil's advocate
Today is, apparently, Blog Action Day. A day where bloggers blog about one issue of global importance, to raise awareness and to further a dialogue.
This year, the issue is climate change. I've always had a very market-driven view of climate change. So, in effect, I don't really care. It'll work itself out.
The problem, I think, is that climate changes very, very slowly. This is good for us, since it gives us time to respond to problems. That is to say, climate "problems" are solved by technology.
Let's say the world gets too warm. First of all, it's not clear that warming is a bad thing. Warming encourages plant life. But, anyways, let's ignore the positive effects. What would we do? We'd create areas with more shade, use the extra sun to power solar energy cells, and use the power to create more freeon (or something).
Let's say the water level rises. We'll have elevated houses and buildings, and possibly start to travel by waterway. Or, we could create bubble cities a la sci-fi stories.
Let's say the entire environment becomes unuseable. That is, we can't go outside at all. Maybe we don't have an ozone layer anymore, maybe the storms are too strong, maybe the heat would kill us, maybe we'd be underwater--whatever. What then? We'd dig underground and create towers. We'd have wind and water turbines to take advantage of the chaos outside of our towers, and we'd cover the towers in solar panels. With that, we can create our own artificial light, and have towers of greenhouses to grow whatever plants we need to survive, and raise cattle there to graze on grass indoors, or something. We could grow whatever we needed to keep us healthy and have plenty of diversity in our diets.
This may seem far-fetched, but it's within the realm of possibility, and is likely even very feasible. As resources become more scarce, prices go up. This creates financial incentive for companies to invest in this sort of stuff--the technology is available, it's just a matter of the towers being too darn expensive. If there was enough demand to support it, though, this would become reality.
My point is this: though any kind of change is painful (see the most recent recession), climate change is not a deal-breaker. Climate change doesn't lead to the end of humanity as we know it. The human race would get along, still. And, who's to say such a futuristic world is better or worse? It's important to note that in this view of the world, our survival depends on technological advancement and development.
On the other hand, I think sustainability initiatives are great. I don't care so much about the environmental impacts of fossil fuels so much, but I don't think it's a good idea to rely on relatively volatile countries for vital energy. If OPEC decides to turn off the spigot again, that would really hurt us, and that's a pretty big weakness. But we're headed in the right direction.
Preservation programs can be pretty bad, though. When your neighborhood keeps out developers, that just hinders progress. We need to develop communities to be ready for the technological advances that need to come to prepare us for the future. Old neighborhoods in growing city centers can cause problems.
This year, the issue is climate change. I've always had a very market-driven view of climate change. So, in effect, I don't really care. It'll work itself out.
The problem, I think, is that climate changes very, very slowly. This is good for us, since it gives us time to respond to problems. That is to say, climate "problems" are solved by technology.
Let's say the world gets too warm. First of all, it's not clear that warming is a bad thing. Warming encourages plant life. But, anyways, let's ignore the positive effects. What would we do? We'd create areas with more shade, use the extra sun to power solar energy cells, and use the power to create more freeon (or something).
Let's say the water level rises. We'll have elevated houses and buildings, and possibly start to travel by waterway. Or, we could create bubble cities a la sci-fi stories.
Let's say the entire environment becomes unuseable. That is, we can't go outside at all. Maybe we don't have an ozone layer anymore, maybe the storms are too strong, maybe the heat would kill us, maybe we'd be underwater--whatever. What then? We'd dig underground and create towers. We'd have wind and water turbines to take advantage of the chaos outside of our towers, and we'd cover the towers in solar panels. With that, we can create our own artificial light, and have towers of greenhouses to grow whatever plants we need to survive, and raise cattle there to graze on grass indoors, or something. We could grow whatever we needed to keep us healthy and have plenty of diversity in our diets.
This may seem far-fetched, but it's within the realm of possibility, and is likely even very feasible. As resources become more scarce, prices go up. This creates financial incentive for companies to invest in this sort of stuff--the technology is available, it's just a matter of the towers being too darn expensive. If there was enough demand to support it, though, this would become reality.
My point is this: though any kind of change is painful (see the most recent recession), climate change is not a deal-breaker. Climate change doesn't lead to the end of humanity as we know it. The human race would get along, still. And, who's to say such a futuristic world is better or worse? It's important to note that in this view of the world, our survival depends on technological advancement and development.
On the other hand, I think sustainability initiatives are great. I don't care so much about the environmental impacts of fossil fuels so much, but I don't think it's a good idea to rely on relatively volatile countries for vital energy. If OPEC decides to turn off the spigot again, that would really hurt us, and that's a pretty big weakness. But we're headed in the right direction.
Preservation programs can be pretty bad, though. When your neighborhood keeps out developers, that just hinders progress. We need to develop communities to be ready for the technological advances that need to come to prepare us for the future. Old neighborhoods in growing city centers can cause problems.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Obama, unemployment, financial modelling, and a book
The New Yorker highlights Obama's economic staff. Romer, Summers, Orszag, Geithner, and Bernstein.
Also from the New Yorker, John Cassidy talks about the unemployment numbers and what we might expect in the future.
Mike Rorty makes a version of an argument that I made before. I'm eager to see what interesting papers will come out, though.
I recommend you read John Quiggin's book snippets. They're good reads.
Also from the New Yorker, John Cassidy talks about the unemployment numbers and what we might expect in the future.
Mike Rorty makes a version of an argument that I made before. I'm eager to see what interesting papers will come out, though.
I recommend you read John Quiggin's book snippets. They're good reads.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Recession, employment, risk modelling, and multipliers
The IMF says that things aren't so bad anymore! They're seemingly less bad than previously thought. They credit monetary and fiscal policy, apparently (I wonder how that'll go in the macro debates?). Feel free to check out the video of the press conference and the actual report.
Robert Reich makes sure we know what the employment numbers really mean.
The Baseline Scenario tells us about the problems of risk modelling. VaR = bad? I think people are being too harsh, though a company shouldn't use one model and nothing else to evaluate risk.
Via Thoma, Krugman talks about multipliers. He says 1.5 is a good estimate for right now.
Robert Reich makes sure we know what the employment numbers really mean.
The Baseline Scenario tells us about the problems of risk modelling. VaR = bad? I think people are being too harsh, though a company shouldn't use one model and nothing else to evaluate risk.
Via Thoma, Krugman talks about multipliers. He says 1.5 is a good estimate for right now.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
G-20, telecommunications, saltwater v freshwater, further than Krugman
Can you name all of the members of the G-20?
The Economist has a chart of cell phone users and internet users in developing countries. Internet access via mobile networks seems like an expensive prospect to me, for Africa.I suppose it might be cheaper than any other way of accessing the internet.
Urbanomics has a pretty good summary of the econoblogosphere saltwater versus freshwater macroeconomics debates. The conclusion: saltwater seems to be winning. I wonder what percentage of economists fall into each category, and how man "moderates" there are.
Paul Rosenberg goes further than Krugman in his discussion of the problems of macroeconomics.
The Economist has a chart of cell phone users and internet users in developing countries. Internet access via mobile networks seems like an expensive prospect to me, for Africa.I suppose it might be cheaper than any other way of accessing the internet.
Urbanomics has a pretty good summary of the econoblogosphere saltwater versus freshwater macroeconomics debates. The conclusion: saltwater seems to be winning. I wonder what percentage of economists fall into each category, and how man "moderates" there are.
Paul Rosenberg goes further than Krugman in his discussion of the problems of macroeconomics.
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