tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62684922012-02-09T11:30:28.934-08:00A blog exploring the intersection of economic thinking and urban planning/real estate development and related big-think themes.Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1550125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-33358044742024783582012-02-09T11:30:00.000-08:002012-02-09T11:30:28.944-08:00

It is possible to discuss the business cycle without conventional aggregate analyses that focus on aggregate demand.  I am particularly impressed with Arnold Kling's approach via Patterns of Sustainable Specialization and Trade (PSST). But it is not possible to have the discussion without a public choice model.  Politics cannot be assumed away.  My favorite public choice model is Bruce Yandle's

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-45110908894830833872012-02-07T11:04:00.000-08:002012-02-07T11:04:44.646-08:00

Stephen Moore writes about the other overused four-letter F-word in today's WSJ.  Yes, N-gram does show a long term rise in the use of "fairness".  Was the Chrysler bail-out "fair"? The rule of law was trampled in the workout.  Clint Eastwood seems to think it was OK; it was in the "spirit of America". More than one commentator has chimed in on the current popularity of Downton Abbey. 

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-17603946033862976072012-02-03T17:56:00.000-08:002012-02-04T13:52:18.987-08:00

The University of Rochester's Duncan Moore writes about "No Rust in Rochester ... Eastman Kodak is bankrupt. So why is Snapshot City thriving?" in today's NY Times. He cites a variety of effects, including the benefits of being a college town (University of Rochester).  Colleges are a town's local export industry that is less sensitive to business cycles.  Students bring in cash as do the

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-22377983129865793402012-02-03T04:29:00.000-08:002012-02-03T04:29:25.483-08:00

I often pay attention to the #1 downloaded article at the WSJ or other widely read paper.  Yesterday's WSJ #1 was "No More Angling for the Best Seat; More Meetings Are Stand-Up Jobs ... Companies Ban Sitting to Speed Things Up ..."  It turns out that the military had tried this years ago and it is now catching on in more places.  I started to think of faculty meetings. There is nothing like

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-75362888651821801852012-01-31T14:22:00.000-08:002012-01-31T14:22:48.111-08:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Charles Mann's 1491 when it came out several years ago.  Everything that I thought I knew about the pre-Columbian Americas (not much) was challenged. I just finished Mann's 1493 and it is (in my view) even better.  First there was Pangaea and then the continents split; their flora and fauna evolved in very different ways for a few hundred million years.  With the Columbian

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-19890883246153049482012-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:002012-01-28T15:49:51.914-08:00

This morning's LA Times reports that, "California orders hike in number of super clean cars ... The state's air board issues new rules to automakers as part of its effort to cut greenhouse gases."  Mandating sales of items that are not in demand may take some doing (including some spending of public funds), but what the hell. In the name of "green", anything goes.  It gets more nutty when one

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-8092519124510552662012-01-27T21:45:00.000-08:002012-01-27T21:45:22.709-08:00

Jonah Lehrer writes about "Groupthink" in the recent New Yorker.  "Brainstorming" is overrated, but serendipidous connections are crucial.  To get the latter, allow for propitious proximity and hope for the best.  The writer cites Jane Jacobs' "knowledge spillovers," which are a huge topic with urban economists and urban planners.  He also cites Steve Jobs' ideas for the best office floor plan

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-45737724985442555412012-01-25T21:05:00.000-08:002012-01-25T21:05:02.730-08:00

Adam Smith famously asked:  Why are some nations wealthier than others?  Almost 250 years later, the discussion continues. Robert Lucas added, “Once you start thinking about economic growth, it’s hard to think about anything else.”  By all means.  How did we (in the West) get so rich?  Steven Landsburg put it this way:Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-254462496029211882012-01-24T20:23:00.000-08:002012-01-24T20:23:47.109-08:00

I keep no open comments section on this blog.  They tend to be a mixed bag.  But there is feedback via email and these are often helpful.  I have been told that by evoking rhetoric in the previous post I was wading into old and complicated discussions of "good" vs. "bad" rhetoric.  But both are inescapable. I recently posted re Daniel Kahneman's new book which places rhetoric alongside our

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-36377990420633031672012-01-22T11:03:00.000-08:002012-01-28T13:32:39.515-08:00

Modern presidential campaigns come close to resembling a freak show.  What will they say/do next?  It is partly our fault ("the media" do represent their audience).  And we expect much too much of politicians -- and we do enjoy some circus.  George Will once referred to Mitt Romney as the Republican Michael Dukakis because Romney chose to simply define himself as a "competent manager."  That is

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-20360672912931895662012-01-19T10:09:00.000-08:002012-01-19T10:09:38.719-08:00

Today's WSJ includes "Zoning Laws Grow Up".  Here are some choice bits: … times have changed and so has the New York City Zoning Resolution, which just passed its 50th anniversary last month. Once regarded with frustration and loathing, zoning in middle age is hot, the cougar of urban regulatory devices: more flexible and dynamic than ever. Actually, urban planners are more likely to invoke a

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-61972454918900679932012-01-18T22:10:00.000-08:002012-01-18T22:10:19.899-08:00

In teaching, I often use the following from the March 1, 1997, issue of The Economist: In many economics textbooks, the presence of externalities is invoked as a justification for government intervention in the marketplace. Yet the private sector often finds its own solutions to externality problems. This is the secret of the shopping mall’s success. Because a property developer owns the entire

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-74940774221269697382012-01-16T22:24:00.000-08:002012-01-16T22:24:53.564-08:00

According to this source, 1955 auto imports to the U.S. were less than 1% of cars registered.  According to this source, the share of imports' sales grew from 15% in 1970 to 33% in 2010.  It's a well known story. Ross Douthat wrote about "The Benefits of Bain Capitalism" in yesterday's NY Times.  He noted that: ... In the decades after World War II, the United States economy was highly regulated

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-254121175610046612012-01-14T22:48:00.000-08:002012-01-16T12:22:57.536-08:00

Forecasting is hard work, which makes central planning very hard.  Here are the 2006 economic assessments by some very smart economists.  They were very wrong.  No doubt that Ben Bernanke is among the best and the brightest.  It is simply that central bankers have taken on more than anyone can handle. I am a fan of Arnold Kling's Unchecked and Unbalanced.  He makes the point that increasingly

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-32986864365124289962012-01-13T13:36:00.000-08:002012-01-13T13:36:28.250-08:00

Many American transportation experts (notably John Pucher of Rutgers) argue for greater bicycle use in the U.S. and hold up some of the European cities as examples.  Here is a YouTube re how the Dutch did it (H/T David Boyce). But whereas I have argued that many of the European cities have ever more similarities to U.S. cities (increasing auto use, more suburbanization than ever), I do not buy

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-64449611923263972492012-01-12T08:42:00.000-08:002012-01-12T08:42:00.316-08:00

My friends in the urban economics biz pay most attention to the residential sector.  It is surely big, but there is a lot more to cities than housing.  Here is a link to some New York research being done on urban retail by my USC colleague Jenny Schuetz and her co-athors. I have tried to to find national shopping data by location.  This is complicated. The International Council of Shopping

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-80299990062075728602012-01-10T13:35:00.000-08:002012-01-10T13:35:52.227-08:00

I used to get worked up when politicians and their consultants lied about proposed rail projects (high ridership forecasts and low cost forecasts that had no basis) in order the wrangle the funds to build them.  But they kept getting away with it so eventually I thought they were simply a force of nature.  But the work of Bent Flyvbjerg and his colleagues as well as Wendell Cox and Joe Vranich

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-76154966163493114752012-01-09T18:35:00.000-08:002012-01-09T18:35:02.536-08:00

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow (naturally) gets his readers to think.  There are many reviews and comments.  I enjoyed the ones I read in the NY Times Book Review by Jim Holt as well as the one in the NY Review of Books by Freeman Dyson. There are two important themes in the book.  One involves a discussion of  the two systems we use in our thinking, the intuitive System 1 and the

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-67193913775276402062012-01-07T11:39:00.000-08:002012-01-07T13:27:02.088-08:00

Just last week, the LA Times reported this:  Review urges delay in borrowing billions for bullet train ... State-mandated panel concludes that the high-speed rail program 'is not financially feasible.' ... Gov. Jerry Brown's office signals that he isn't likely to be swayed by the findings.  ... In a scathing critique that could further jeopardize political support for California's proposed $98.5

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-25098267900648986612012-01-05T19:42:00.000-08:002012-01-06T13:33:39.698-08:00

The WSJ reports "Kodak Teeters on the Brink".  This was expected.  Everyone I know uses their "phone" to take photos.  Creative destruction is the name of the game.  And that's a very good thing. The dynamism of the market economy accounts for our material well being but is ignored by most critics of capitalism (who dwell on powerful and impregnable corporations).  The critics includes most "

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-13325724423634737482012-01-03T11:40:00.000-08:002012-01-03T11:40:01.308-08:00

Rortybomb reports that the Zuccotti Park OWS library contained a copy of Don Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking.  Amazing what rebels with time on their hands will read. But the Rortybomb post then goes on to note and cite various views of privatization.   Can you have privatization without liberalization?  In other words, is there "enough" competition?   Also this: “In just three words, ‘

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-55525639702892482932012-01-02T07:20:00.000-08:002012-01-02T07:20:38.436-08:00

What a year.  It is just over a day old and Alvin Rabushka peppers us with these very good "12 Questions for 2012."  But I have to add #13.  In light of the fact that the best that Congress and the President can come up with is a two-month plan (the most recent budget agreement), why do those of us who have so many bright ideas for reform expect any of our proposals to be implemented?  I wish I

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-5132319806904656942011-12-31T15:51:00.000-08:002012-01-01T09:27:34.942-08:00

The WSJ's Rachel Bachman ("Enough Already With the Little Guy ... Why College Football's Power Conferences Should Ditch the Smaller Ones; the $2000 Question") explains why San Diego State is joining the Big East conf and why the colleges balked at the idea of throwing a $2,000 crumb to atheletes.  It's the money and it's shameless exploitation by colleges. There are now more than thirty college

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-73578638609719134942011-12-29T18:15:00.000-08:002011-12-29T18:15:30.377-08:00

Megan McArdle argues that most people do not save enough.  We hear that a lot and it's probably true. It is also true that many of us are less than perfect in forecasting our future wants, capabilities, successes and failures.  Nevertheless, sage advice cannot hurt. James Surowiecki writes about the return of lay-away.  When borrowers and lenders were optimistic, credit cards were easily

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6268492.post-87642163276404007832011-12-28T03:31:00.000-08:002011-12-28T15:54:29.874-08:00

Over at Urban Demographics, they link to The Atlantic's photo essay on Landscape Absurdism: Las Vegas.  Quite a few planners (and many others) love this stuff.  It plays to the idea that there are "chaotic" and "wasteful" land use patterns, especially in sunbelt suburbs and perhaps most especially in Las Vegas. We know now that there was suburban over-building, not just in Vegas, but in most

Peter Gordonnoreply@blogger.com