The theory of efficient markets, when applied beyond financial markets, is proposed by those who bridle against government regulation of business. Their idea is that markets will punish bad behavior of individual firms or even whole industries and thus create incentives for firms to produce goods and services without harming employees, consumers, or the environment. […]
Readers of Stirring the Pot know that I am deeply concerned about the issues of global climate change and inequality in the United States. Climate change, or the larger issue of global change, is an existential threat to modern human civilization. Inequality strikes at the very heart of the American ideal of “liberty and justice […]
One narrative about the Yellow Vest protests in France is that politicians should not adopt energy taxes to change behaviors that lead to climate change. In this telling, the political costs of wise energy policy are too high. This is an overly simple reading of the French experience and is a convenient excuse for those […]
If you have read Stirring the Pot blog very much (thank you), you will have noticed two persistent themes — inequality and the environment. Examples of bogs on inequality include: Class Warfare? Shame on Us The Crisis of Our Age: Part II Welfare Economics Among those on environmental issues are: When Did We Stop Worrying […]
Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel and colleagues estimated that the earth might be able to sustain only 2 billion people by the end of the fossil fuel era. There are about 7.5 billion humans on the planet right now. It seems counterintuitive that there is nearly 4 times the sustainable population now living on the […]
Before last weekend, the last time I had spent any time on Maine’s Southern beaches was a field trip for a geology class in my first year of college (don’t ask the year). Professor Hussey used the trip to immerse us in the patterns of coastal geology. In early April we spent a couple of […]
In the last two decades of the 20th Century, environmental economists made tremendous strides in developing techniques to measure economic values when there are no markets (they call these “non-market valuation”). These efforts grew out of the criticism of the environmental statutes adopted in the 1970s like the Clean Air Act or the Endangered Species […]
The new administration in Washington is filled with climate change deniers. They reject the consensus among scientists that human behaviors emitting greenhouse gases contribute significantly to climate change. The reality — climate change is part of a larger problem better known as global change. Over 9 billion humans, many living relatively sumptuous lifestyles like ours […]
Economists become famous by winning the Nobel Prize (technically the Swedish National Bank’s Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) or becoming public intellectuals like John Kenneth Galbraith or Paul Krugman. But economists do not have to be famous to be important. Significant contributions come in many guises. The most important economist you […]
Thanksgiving morning we took our traditional hike in Acadia. This year it was more of a walk – the Ocean Path from Sand Beach to Otter Cliffs to Otter Cove and back again. It was a beautiful morning, bright sun shining and an ocean full of Common Eider Ducks and Grebes. Thanksgivings were offered for […]
