Why is the lesbian pay gap so positively large in the USA?
24 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, human capital, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies – Annual Casey-McIlvane Lecture
24 Feb 2020 1 Comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of information, economics of regulation, environmental economics, financial economics, industrial organisation, international economics, James Buchanan, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: rational ignorance, rational irrationality
When does the pause matter?
22 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, econometerics, energy economics, environmental economics, global financial crisis (GFC)
See https://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/McKitrick2014_ThePause.pdf and https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/model_obs_comp_nov_2019.pdf
The fact that CO2 emissions lead to changes in the atmospheric carbon concentration is not controversial. Nor is the fact that CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) absorb infrared energy in the atmosphere and contribute to the overall greenhouse effect. Increases in CO2 levels are therefore expected to lead to atmospheric warming, and this is the basis for the current push to enact policies to reduce GHG emissions.
For more than 25 years, climate models have reported a wide span of estimates of the sensitivity of the climate to CO2 emissions, ranging from relatively benign to potentially catastrophic. These continuing uncertainties have direct policy implications. Economic models for analyzing climate policy are calibrated using climate models, not climate data. In a low-sensitivity model, GHG emissions lead only to minor changes in temperature, so the socioeconomic costs associated with the emissions are minimal. In a high-sensitivity model, large temperature changes would occur, so marginal economic damages of CO2 emissions are larger.
The data show that, over the past two decades, warming has actually slowed down to a pace well below most model projections. Depending on the data set used, there has been no statistically significant temperature change for the past 15 to 20 years. Yet atmospheric GHG levels have increased rapidly over this interval, and there is now a widening discrepancy between most climate model projections and observed temperatures.
Since economic models are trained to match climate models, if climate models overstate the effect of CO2 emissions, economic models will overstate the social damages associated with them. Consequently, there is good reason to suppose that economic models too may be subject to revision over the next few years. Hence, it is essential to build into the policy framework clear feedback mechanisms that connect new data about climate sensitivity to the stringency of the emissions control policy. And since important new information about climate sensitivity is expected within a few years, there is value to waiting for this information before making any irreversible climate policy commitments, in order to avoid making costly decisions that are revealed a short time later to have been unnecessary.
Nobel Prize Winner in Economist 1995 – Robert Emerson Lucas
20 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in business cycles, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Robert E. Lucas
Champ and Freeman on financial intermediation
19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: adverse selection, asymmetric information, monetary policy, moral hazard, rational expectations
No housing bubbles if land supply is flexible
19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics
The key contributions of Fisher’s Appreciation and Interest (1896)
19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economics of information, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics
What is the money illusion?
19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economics of information, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics
Nobel Symposium Randall Kroszner Lessons from the global financial crisis, and crises past
19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of information, economics of regulation, Euro crisis, financial economics, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics Tags: sovereign defaults
Debate: Abolish Banking Insurance?
18 Feb 2020 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of information, economics of regulation, financial economics, industrial organisation, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, privatisation, survivor principle Tags: bank panics, bank runs, deposit insurance
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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