The Unbroken Window

In this week’s episode of the Commons Chronicles, I bring to you … the office copy machine. I don’t make too heavy use of it, but I can assure you that when I do, I make lots of copies – mostly to print exams for my large classes. I typically need 600-1000 sheets of paper to print [...]

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Chait: We know that Medicaid makes people happier and less poor. We have trouble proving its impact on their physical well-being because proof of the benefits of medicine remain elusive. Unless we want to stop thinking of basic medical care as a life necessity, and we don’t, the case for Medicaid remains unimpeachable. So [...]

Read Full Post »

So now my university is so awesome, that we celebrate the fact that we are a “spotlighted” institution that supports and advances the Department of Energy’s scientific research programs. Yes, indeed. Using taxpayer funds to promote politically favored research projects. Wasn’t the synfuels program DoE? And Solyndra? And Fisker? And who knows what other projects lurk.  That’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Let’s do a quick rundown of what we know about wind power. (1) Far from being an emerging technology, it is a centuries old technology, in use even long before the Dutch made them look pretty. But that’ll never prevent folks from telling us we need to flood wind with money to “demonstrate” this emerging [...]

Read Full Post »

Ford, like Exxon, is enjoying monster profits right now. But of course there are no calls for “excess profits taxes” on them. I hereby propose one. Here is a nice bit from the news story: Ford will pay profit-sharing checks of about $8,300 to its 45,000 hourly workers in the U.S. represented by the United [...]

Read Full Post »

Remember the debates leading up to the passage of Obamacare? Among the many unicorns sold to us about how ObamaCare would save money was the rapid implementation of “Electronic Medical Records.” This administration, based of course wholly on uncorrupted scientific evidence for everything they do, was heavily influenced by a 2005 RAND study which claimed [...]

Read Full Post »

The USA Today reports on its findings regarding the “sustainability” of LEED buildings. A triumph indeed. The saddest part: More than 200 states, cities and federal agencies now require LEED certification for new public buildings, even though they have done little independent and meaningful research into LEED’s effectiveness. LEED can add millions to construction costs [...]

Read Full Post »

The entire installed capacity (rated capacity, not actual) of solar power in the United States is 1.39 gigawatts of power (about 2GW if you add in solar thermal). The largest single coal plant in the United States is over twice as large as the total amount of solar capacity in the entire country.

Read Full Post »

Whatever happened to evidence based economics. In today’s NBER release we learn this about mortgage remodification programs: A difference-in-difference strategy that exploits variation in program eligibility criteria reveals that the program generated an increase in the intensity of renegotiations while adversely affecting effectiveness of renegotiations performed outside the program.  Renegotiations induced by the program resulted in a modest reduction in [...]

Read Full Post »

I know we all think that the $20B to $30B each year in farm subsidies is intended to put money in the pockets of farmers for either growing or not growing foodstuffs. But as I sit here on this hot Sunday I cannot help but shake the idea that the reason the agricultural lobby is [...]

Read Full Post »