Environment & Climate Change

43 Items

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

High Oil Prices Can Help the Environment

| Oct. 28, 2021

Prices of fossil fuels rose sharply in October. The European price for natural gas hit a record peak early in the month. The price of US crude oil is above $80 a barrel, the highest it has been in seven years. Prices for thermal coal in China have also reached record highs. Heading into the northern winter, consumers in many parts of the world are understandably worried.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Carbon Prices, Not Monetary Policies, Are the Tools to Fight Climate Change

| Jan. 23, 2020

Everyone agrees that Climate Change is at the top of the list of most important policy issues that we face – everyone, with a few exceptions such as Trump supporters who call it a hoax.  Identifying the problem, however, is not much use unless we also identify the appropriate tools to address the problem.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

The Fed and Inequality

| Oct. 28, 2016
Populist politicians, among others, have claimed in recent years that monetary policy is too easy and that it is hurting ordinary workers.   But raising interest rates is not the way to address income inequality.It is a strange claim for anyone to make, but especially for populists.  Low interest rates are good for debtors, of course, and bad for creditors. Throughout most of US history, populists have supported easy monetary policy and low interest rates, to help the little guy, against bankers, who had hard hearts and believed in hard money.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Fiscal Education for the G-7

| May 26, 2016
As the G-7 Leaders gather in Ise-Shima, Japan, on May 26-27, the still fragile global economy is on their minds.  They would like a road map to address stagnant growth. Their approach should be to talk less about currency wars and more about fiscal policy.Fiscal policy vs. monetary policyUnder the conditions that have prevailed in most major countries over the last ten years, we have reason to think that fiscal policy is a more powerful tool for affecting the level of economic activity, as compared to monetary policy.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Talk on trade: TPP & Trump

| May 20, 2016
The ITC Wednesday released its mandated report on the economic effects estimated to result from the TransPacific Partnership.  As is usual in standard trade models, the estimated welfare gains may sound small: on the order of ¼ % of income.  But that would still be way worth doing.    Furthermore the ITC study, by design, leaves out a lot.  For example, the Petri-Plummer study from the Peterson Institute estimates income gains from TPP that are twice as large, in part because it takes into account Melitz-style opportunities for  more productive firms to expand.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, C’est Bon

| Dec. 22, 2015
How should one evaluate the agreement reached in Paris December 12 by the 21st Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)?   Some avid environmentalists may have been disappointed in the outcome.  The reason is that the negotiators did not commit to limiting global warming to 1 ½ degrees centigrade by 2050, nor will the new agreement directly achieve the 2 degree limit.But such commitments would not have been credible.  What came out of Paris was in fact better, because the negotiators were able to agree on meaningful practical near-term steps.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

TPP Critics’ Nighttime Fears Fade by Light of Day

| Oct. 11, 2015
The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) that was finally agreed among trade negotiators of 12 Pacific countries on October 5 came as a triumph over long odds.  Tremendous political obstacles, domestic and international, had to be overcome over the last five years.  Now each country has to decide whether to ratify the agreement.Many of the issues are commonly framed as “Left” versus “Right."  The unremitting hostility to the negotiations up until now from the Left – often in protest at being kept in the dark regarding the text of the agreement -- has carried two dangers.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Statement on Agricultural Biotechnology

| Sep. 30, 2015

My work on agricultural biotechnology for Africa dates to the mid-1980s. My first major publication on the subject in 1989 was entitled The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds. This was nearly seven years before the first commercial release of the transgenic crops in North America. The focus of my work has been on identifying technologies that could contribute to sustainable development in Africa. I have advocated policies that seek to reduce the negative consequences of new technologies while maximizing their impacts.