Thomas Schelling, 2009 climate change
10 May 2021 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, Thomas Schelling
But @ClimateCommNZ doesn’t know the cost of #globalwarming as a % GDP!
31 Jan 2021 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand Tags: climate alarmists

#climateemergency #globalwarming @GreenpeaceAP @Greens @NZGreens @jamespeshaw @AOC @BernieSanders @SenWarren
23 Jul 2020 Leave a comment
Bjorn Lomborg: False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions And Fails To Fix The Planet
15 Jul 2020 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: climate alarmists
#climateemergency #globalwarming voters are even tighter with their money than #crazybernie voters
07 Jan 2020 Leave a comment
The two words missing from @TheAusInstitute tweet on #globalwarming #climateemergency in Western Sydney
04 Jan 2020 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, energy economics, experimental economics, global warming, politics - Australia
.@mfe_news advised @jamespeshaw that a net zero carbon economy will cut annual GDP growth by 1/10 or more. Is that a 4% reduction in GDP by 2050?
08 May 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic growth, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, income redistribution, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, resource economics Tags: climate alarmism
#Morganfoundation discovers that #Ukraine is a dodgy place to buy credence goods
19 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of crime, economics of information, environmental economics, global warming, industrial organisation, international economic law, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, survivor principle Tags: adverse selection, asymmetric information, carbon trading, climate alarmism, climate alarmists, credence goods, experience goods, inspection goods
Morgan Foundation yesterday put out a report pointing out that many of the carbon credits purchased from the Ukraine under the carbon trading scheme are fraudulent.
That comes with no surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with business conditions and the level of official corruption in the former Soviet Union. Russia is a more honest place to do business.
Carbon traders who buy from the Ukraine are not buying an inspection good. An inspection good is a good whose quality you can ascertain before purchase.
They are not buying an experience good. An experience good is a good whose quality is ascertained after purchase in the course of consumption.
Source: Russia, Ukraine dodgy carbon offsets cost the climate – study | Climate Home – climate change news.
What these carbon traders in New Zealand are doing is buying credence goods from the Ukraine. The credence goods are the carbon credits, which the Morgan Foundation and others have found often to be fraudulent.
A credence good is a good whose value is difficult or impossible for the consumer to ascertain. A classic example of a credence good is motor vehicle repairs.
You must trust the seller and their advice as to how much you need to buy of a credence good. Many forms of medical treatment also require you to trust the seller as to how much you need.
Carbon credits are such a credence good. You know there is corruption in the Ukraine and many other countries that supply them. You may never know at any reasonable cost whether the specific carbon credits you buy were legitimate.
The reason why carbon credits are purchased from such an unreliable source is expressive voting. As is common with expressive politics, what matters is whether the voters cheer or boo the policy. The fact whether it works or not does not matter too much.
The Greens are upset about this corruption in carbon trading. They did not mention the corruption in international carbon trading and climate aid when they welcomed the recent Paris treaty on global warming but that is for another day.
https://twitter.com/kadhimshubber/status/721831502372302849
Co-ordinated international action on global warming is rather pointless if some of the key countries with carbon emission caps are corrupt, which they are.
As Geoff Brennan has argued, CO2 reduction actions will be limited to modest unilateral reductions of a largely token character. There are many expressive voting concerns that politicians must balance to stay in office and the environment is but one of these.
Once climate change policies start to actually become costly to swinging voters, expressive voting support for these policies will fall away, and it has.
Networked Carbon Markets
Source: World Bank Networked Carbon Markets.
One way to stem that fading support is to buy carbon credits on the cheap and there is plenty of disreputable suppliers of cheap carbon credits. Buying dodgy carbon credits as a way of doing something on global warming without it costing more than expressive voters will pay.
One of the predictions of the adverse selection literature is that if consumers cannot differentiate good and bad goods from each other, such as with used cars, the market will contract sharply or even collapse because buyers cannot trust what is on offer. This risk of adverse selection undermining a market applies with clarity to carbon trading.
Source: How Can Your Vote Shape a Low Carbon Future? It Starts with Carbon Pricing.
The Economics of Red State vs. Blue State Carbon Politics
25 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, climate change, constitutional political economy, economics of climate change, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, transport economics, urban economics
1. Â My JPAM 2000 paper documents that suburbanites drive more and consume more electricity than urban residents.
2. My 2011 JUE paper documents that center city liberal resident NIMBY zoning regulation has deflected more development to the suburbs where people live a high carbon life (see paper #1 above) and then oppose carbon pricing.
3. My co-authored 2013 JPUBE paper documents that energy intensive manufacturing industries seek out cheap electricity price areas. Â Whether U.S carbon pricing and the resulting higher electricity prices would nudge them to move oversees remains an open question.
4. Â My co-authored 2012 EER paper documents that more educated people are more likely to have installed solar panels and to go off the grid and thus not pay higher electricity prices.
5. My 2013 EI paper documents that Congress Representatives oppose carbon mitigation regulation when they are conservative, their district is poorer and their district is high carbon. Â Nancy Pelosi and Tom Steyer are in liberal, rich, low carbon San Francisco. Â There, it is easy to comply with carbon regulation. Â They will pay few new costs for such low carbon regulation.
6. My co-authored 2015 JAERE paper documents that even in California and within counties that suburbanites vote against low carbon regulation relative to center city residents. Since we control for the fact that liberals live in center cities, this 3rd variable does not explain the urban form/voting correlation.
7. Â In my co-authored 2015 JUE paper we document that U.S protectionism through the Buy America Act has hindered the improvement of our bus fleet as a green technology.
Source: Environmental and Urban Economics: The Economics of Red State vs. Blue State Carbon Politics
This #Vox political bias test is biased despite my good result
11 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, economics of climate change, economics of crime, environmental economics, health economics, macroeconomics
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