matthew kahn

There are credible predictions that the drought will persist through next summer.

 That's scary.  Lake Travis, one of our two main reservoirs, is 47 feet below full.

 We are in trouble if this trend line continues for another year:

When it's 110 outside, I just pretend I'm living in Duluth in January and don't go outside other than to walk to my car.  I miss being able to go outside in the middle of the day.  I'm sick of sunlight.  But the drought bothers me more than the heat.   I miss thunder and I miss the smell of wet pavement after a good rain shower and I'm tired of dust and brown landscapes.   My almost-three-year old was napping the last time we had a good shower; I'm not sure a storm is within his living memory. 

I agree with Ryan Avent that this WSJ piece makes a bizarre argument against congestion pricing:

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals.

I agree with Ryan Avent that this WSJ piece makes a bizarre argument against congestion pricing:

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals.

Matthew Kahn wonders whether blog reading crowds out book reading.

 He believes there are two types of blog readers:  the nerdy "Wikipedia" types who like variety and suffer from slight attention deficit order, and the "deep readers" who want to dig deep in a few subjects.

 He speculates that books are substitutes for the Wikipedia nerds and complements for the deep readers.

Matthew Kahn wonders whether blog reading crowds out book reading.

 He believes there are two types of blog readers:  the nerdy "Wikipedia" types who like variety and suffer from slight attention deficit order, and the "deep readers" who want to dig deep in a few subjects.

 He speculates that books are substitutes for the Wikipedia nerds and complements for the deep readers.

I've been tagged by Wendy Waters (All About Cities).

 I'm supposed to list seven facts about myself and tag seven others.

Back in March, I wrote about economists Matthew Kahn and Ed Glaeser's work comparing carbon emissions among metropolitan areas.

Among other things, they estimated how carbon emissions from driving vary across metropolitan areas.

 The variation in gasoline use is just as interesting, though.  Kahn and Glaeser did not explicitly calculate this, but I did the simple arithmetic to convert their estimates of carbon emissions to estimates of gasoline use.

 

Economists Ed Glaeser and Matthew Kahn have written a new paper estimating the differences in carbon emissions across different metropolitan areas.