Readings for Econ 372 Environmental Economics
Handouts
Readings
Don Fullerton & Robert Stavins, "How do Economists Really Think about the Environment?" (Resources for the Future, 1998)
Paul Krugman, “Building a Green Economy” (The New York Times. April 7, 2010.)
Tom Chang, Joshua Graff Zivin, Tal Gross, and Matthew Neidell, "The Effect of Pollution on Worker Productivity," NBER 22328, Sept. 2016
Kling et al, "From Exxon to BP: Has Some Number Become Better Than No Number?," (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2012)
Richard T. Carson, " Contingent Valuation: A Practical Alternative When Prices Aren't Available," (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2012)
Timothy Taylor (1), "Contingent Valuation and Deepwater Horizon Spill" (Conversable Economist, March 23, 2018)
Jerry Hausman, "Contingent Valuation: From Dubious to Hopeless" (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2012)
"Study Finds Racial Gap Between Who Causes Air Pollution And Who Breathes It," (NPR, March 11, 2019)
Stephen Landsburg, "Is Your Life Worth $10 Million?" Slate, March 3, 2003
Spencer Banzhaf, Lala Ma, and Christopher Timmins, "Environmental Justice: The Economics of Race, Place, and Pollution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2019
Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (Science. December 1968)
Giglio et al. "Discounting the very distant future," (VoxEU.org, 21 June 2014)
Richard G. Newell and Juha V. Siikamäki, "Individual Discount Rates and Energy-Efficient Purchasing" (NBER 20969 February 2015)
Laura Bakkensen & Lint Barrage, "Shore Dwellers Perceive Less Risk From Flooding" (NBER 23854 December 2017)"
"Electric Cars are Better for the Planet - and Often Your Budget, Too," The New York Times, January 15, 2021
David Roberts (1), "Americans are Willing to Pay $177 a Year to Avoid Climate Change" (Vox, October 13, 2017)
Michael Greenstone, "Americans Appear Willing to Pay for a Carbon Tax Policy" (New York Times, September 15, 2016)
Timothy Taylor (2), "The Origins of the Value of a Statistical Life" (Conversable Economist, November 25, 2014)
Cass Sunstein, "What Price is Right?" (New York Review of Books, June 10, 2021)
Umair Irfan, "Carbon offsets, explained in 500 words," (Vox, February 27, 2020)
Umair Irfan, "Can you really negate your carbon emissions? Carbon offsets, explained," (Vox, February 27, 2020)
Lynne Kiesling - "Hayek and the Knowledge Problem" (2014)
Arik Levinson - "US factories are polluting way less — but it's not because of offshoring" (Vox, February 8, 2015)
Ronald Coase, "The Problem of Social Costs" (Journal of Law & Economics. October 1960)
Solomon Hsiang & Robert E. Kopp, "An Economist's Guide to Climate Change Science," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2018
SCC - Resources for the Future, Social Cost of Carbon 101, August 1, 2019
Nicholas Stern & Joseph Stiglitz, "Getting the Social Cost of Carbon Right," Project Syndicate, February 15, 2021
Science Friday - "How The Past Hints About Our Climate’s Future" with Professor Jessica Tierney, December 18, 2020 (Audio)
xkcd 1 - "Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature"
xkcd 2 - "How big a change is that?
Agnotology, Grist, March 30, 2021
Nobel Prize Report on Nordhaus, 2018 (pp. 23-44, skim)
Bjorn Lomborg, "It's Cheaper to Talk than to Cut Emissions" (Project Syndicate, May 17, 2019)
Thomas Schelling, "The Cost of Combatting Global Warming," (Foreign Affairs, 1997)
Wagner & Weitzman, Fat Tails
"How Does Your State Make Electricity?" The New York Times, December 24, 2018
Douglas Puffert - "Path Dependence," Economic History,
Hans Rosling - "Fossil Fuel Distribution in Two Minutes" - 2013 (Video)
Thomas Schelling's Tipping Point
William Nordhaus - "Climate Clubs: Overcoming Free-Riding in International Climate Policy", American Economic Review, April 2015
Harstad - "Want to stop climate change: buy fossil fuel deposits" - 2012
Nathanial Rich, "'Losing Earth' Explores How the Oil Industry Played Politics with the Planet's Fate" (NPR April 8, 2019)
For your interest: A much longer piece by Rich: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change," (New York Times, August 1st, 2018)
For amusement
Tom the Dancing Bug on Externalities
Chickens and Carbon Pricing, Grist, February 10, 2016
xkcd - Log scales and energy density
xkcd - Snow in St. Louis
xkcd - Thickness of ice sheets
xkcd - Bigger problem
xkcd - Fatal crash rate
xkcd - Redefine the kilogram
xkcd - Household tips
xkcd - What if we sequestered CO2 in sodas?
xkcd - Heat index
xkcd - Hey, we're still STEM!
smbc - The Future 2
smbc - Mother Nature
smbc - Rising sea levels
smbc - Cap & Trade
smbc - Evil utilitarianism
smbc - Ghost ship
smbc - Cyanobacteria
smbc - Culture
smbc - Monkey
smbc - Effective villainy
smbc - Paradise
Borowitz Report - Free Market