Our paper from the Port Macquarie AARES Conference is now on the web. We plan to have an updated and extended version of the paper on the web as a formal working paper in the next week or so. I'll write up a discussion about the paper then.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
John List to Take Up Fractional Appointment at Monash
A coup for Monash University - John List to take up fractional appointment at Monash!
One motivation for this move would be the ERA. But the census date for ERA 2015 is 31 March 2014. Staff need to be affiliated at that date for their prior publications to be counted. Also the ARC is cracking down on institutions claiming the publications of affiliates. For those employed in less than a 0.4 fractional position, at least one publication must list the institution as an affiliation on the publication. As a reviewer for ERA 2012, I think some institutions really abused the system with their claims of affiliates' publications in ERA 2012. So, this move by Monash is either a long term plan, or has nothing to do with the ERA.
The Motorcycle Kuznets Curve
This is What Market Dis-Equilibrium Looks Like
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Climate Change and the World Economy
The blurb for our forthcoming book is below. Thanks to those who suggested papers that we included in the book! Previous posts on this project.
Climate Change and the World Economy
Edited by David I. Stern, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Frank Jotzo, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University and Leo Dobes, Adjunct Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Australia.
World economic activity is a cause of climate change and climate change has an impact on economic activity. Adaptation to climate change can occur locally, but action on climate change requires global cooperation or at least coordination.
Covering all aspects of the problem, this collection contains both classic and recent key published articles on this burning issue. The first section explores global trends in emissions and their drivers as well as the most important forecasts of global greenhouse gas emissions. The second section covers mitigation policy at the international level reviewing costs, benefits, and analysis of policy instruments. The final section focuses on adaptation and the roles of risk and uncertainty in responses to climate change.
The extensive, authoritative introduction provided by the editors puts these contributions into context. This volume will be of interest and value to researchers and policy professionals in the areas of climate policy and environmental economics.
40 articles, dating from 1956 to 2012
Contributors include: N.P. Gleditsch; R. Mendelsohn; N. Nakicenovic; W. Nordhaus; G. Peters; B. Smit; S. Smith; N.Stern; R. Tol; M. Weitzman
May 2014 c 752 pp
Hardback ISBN 978 1 78100 918 5
Price c £250.00
Climate Change and the World Economy
Edited by David I. Stern, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Frank Jotzo, Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University and Leo Dobes, Adjunct Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Australia.
World economic activity is a cause of climate change and climate change has an impact on economic activity. Adaptation to climate change can occur locally, but action on climate change requires global cooperation or at least coordination.
Covering all aspects of the problem, this collection contains both classic and recent key published articles on this burning issue. The first section explores global trends in emissions and their drivers as well as the most important forecasts of global greenhouse gas emissions. The second section covers mitigation policy at the international level reviewing costs, benefits, and analysis of policy instruments. The final section focuses on adaptation and the roles of risk and uncertainty in responses to climate change.
The extensive, authoritative introduction provided by the editors puts these contributions into context. This volume will be of interest and value to researchers and policy professionals in the areas of climate policy and environmental economics.
40 articles, dating from 1956 to 2012
Contributors include: N.P. Gleditsch; R. Mendelsohn; N. Nakicenovic; W. Nordhaus; G. Peters; B. Smit; S. Smith; N.Stern; R. Tol; M. Weitzman
May 2014 c 752 pp
Hardback ISBN 978 1 78100 918 5
Price c £250.00
RATS Command RESTRICT
I've spent the last couple of days trying to replicate results in RATS that Chunbo produced using STATA. In the process we found a lot of bugs in our data-processing and computer codes but now we can replicate each others results. We are estimating a translog cost share system together with the cost function. Previously, I have used the RATS command SUR to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regressions and then the command RESTRICT(replace) to impose the restrictions and SUR(CREATE) to produce the restricted SUR estimates. This did not reproduce the same results as STATA at all. Instead using NLSYSTEM in RATS (despite the fact that the system is linear), I managed to reproduce the same results as STATA. This now seems to be the recommended way to do this type of analysis according to the RATS User Guide. So, I really don't know what the estimates produced by RESTRICT in RATS represent and I strongly recommend not to use them. This shows yet again that it is very important to know what the computer code you are using is actually doing.
Monday, April 7, 2014
IPCC Working Group III 5th Assessment Report Launch
The IPCC Working Group III 5th Assessment Report will be launched with a press conference on Sunday 13 April at 11am Berlin time. This will already be Sunday evening in Australia, so Wednesday 14th April is the effective release date here. The governments are already meeting at the final plenary in Berlin starting today to approve the report. So, we are beginning to prepare our media release here at ANU and writing an article to appear on The Conversation. I imagine that there will be quite a bit of confusion about the difference between this report and the WG II report launched only a week ago, so maybe that's something we should explain. Also, I see the Sydney Morning Herald has a "sneak preview". Anyway, expect more blogging on this coming up!
Friday, April 4, 2014
EROI Goes Mainstream
Friday, March 28, 2014
Chunbo Ma Seminar at ANU
Chunbo Ma will be visiting ANU from Monday for a couple of weeks to work with me on our ARC project. On 10th April he is giving a seminar on his research on the effect of solar panels on house prices. Chunbo was my PhD student in the US and we have published a few papers together. Our current work is on substitutability in China. Well, it is really more about using new estimators to estimate elasticities of substitution and we will use Chinese data to do that. Please register and come along to Chunbo's seminar if you are in Canberra.
On 1st April I am giving a seminar at Arndt-Corden Department of Economics. It will be a longer version of the presentation I gave at the AARES meeting in Port Macquarie in February and at the recent AARES evening in Canberra. I just heard that the same paper has been accepted to the World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economics in Istanbul. Please come along to this seminar too!
Friday, March 21, 2014
IAEE Asia Conference
I just agreed to give a presentation in a dual plenary session at the IAEE Asia Conference in Beijing in September. The topic of the session will be climate change policy. I'll report on our research on understanding the costs of mitigation policies.
Substitutability and the Cost of Climate Mitigation Policy
Yingying Lu, my post-doc on our ARC project, and myself have a new working paper on our research on the effects of assumptions about substitutability on the estimated costs of climate change mitigation policy. Some of the results are in line with our expectations and some are quite surprising...
I originally proposed this project because I was surprised that there could be such different views on the costs of stopping climate change. The mainstream economic community working on these issues usually finds that the costs of even quite strong action are in the neighborhood of lowering GDP by 1-4% below what it would be under business as usual (BAU). As GDP is expected to continue to grow strongly in such models, this seems to be a quite trivial cost to avoid disaster. It implies that doubling today's level of GDP will be delayed by just 1 to 2 years. Tavoni and Tol argued that these figures ignore those models which failed to be able to simulate the stronger policy scenarios. But even when they compensate for that bias they estimate that the net present value of the reduction in GDP is about 8% of BAU GDP. On the other hand, Tim Jackson argued that we need to stop economic growth in order to have any chance of dealing with climate change. This does not seem to be an uncommon view among natural scientists, environmentalists, and also many climate skeptics. Roger Pielke argues that such unprecedented decarbonization is "all but impossible". Again, the implication is then that growth must be stopped in order to reduce emissions.
So, I wondered whether mainstream climate models are somehow missing something. Specifically, are they assuming that it is easier to reduce fossil fuel use than it actually is. If the economy was less flexible - if the parameters known as elasticities of substitution were smaller - it would presumably be harder to reduce fossil use. Very little research has been published on the sensitivity of climate policy costs estimated by mainstream computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to changes in the elasticities of substitution. And what there is is not really designed to answer this question.
Our research uses McKibbin and Wilcoxen's G-Cubed model. We ran the model under BAU and four policy scenarios ranging from a 20% global cut in emissions by 2030 relative to 2010 to a 20% increase, which matches the RCP scenarios quite well.
We perturbed most of the elasticities of substitution in production and consumption (but not those between domestic and foreign goods and services) by increasing them by 50% and reducing them by 50%. We also tried some other parameter sets, including setting all elasticities to 0.5; setting all elasticities of substitution between capital, labor, energy, and materials to 0.5 and all those between fuels to one; setting all elasticities to 0.1; and setting all elasticities to 2.
Not surprisingly, as we reduce the elasticities, the cost of abating a tonne of carbon increases and vice versa. What is surprising, is the extent to which the BAU emissions path is changed. BAU emissions are reduced in the less flexible economies relative to emissions in the default model. This effect is so strong that usually the total cost of reducing emissions increases with increasing flexibility and vice versa. In fact, in our most extreme low flexibility scenario, emissions grow so slowly that the more moderate policy scenarios are not binding. Economic growth is in fact halted and so there is a much reduced climate problem to deal with. This seems to be an example of the de La Grandville hypothesis that, the greater the elasticity of substitution, the faster the rate of economic growth.
Yingying and I debated whether the growth effect is real or an artefact of our modelling. Jorgenson et al.'s study avoided the issue by looking at policy scenarios that are based on percentage reductions in emissions relative to business as usual. Babonneau et al. adjust the rates of technical change so that the BAU scenario reproduces the expected rate of economic growth in the European Commission's World Energy Technology Outlook. We believe that this is likely to be a real effect. On the other hand, G-Cubed assumes that the rate of technological is exogenous, whereas the rate would also likely vary with the elasticities of substitution. Additionally, the baseline levels of output and prices at the start of our simulation are based on the real world level of these variables which would also differ if the economy was very different. Therefore, our results are not a reliable indication of the relative performance of more and less flexible economies in the real world
So, what is the bottom line?
1. Because a less flexible economy has higher abatement costs per tonne of carbon but less emissions growth, if what we care about is the total costs of climate policy then it is not so important to get good estimates of elasticities of substitution. If we care about average and marginal costs of abatement, then these parameters are critical. We again find that the distinction between marginal and total costs of abatement is important.
2. Though stopping growth reduces the climate change problem, the reverse isn't true. We cannot find a model economy where the costs of climate mitigation are so high that such a policy would result in stopping economic growth or that mitigation cannot be achieved without stopping growth. Certainly, assuming that the economy is a lot less flexible than it is cannot generate high total costs. In fact the reverse is true.
I originally proposed this project because I was surprised that there could be such different views on the costs of stopping climate change. The mainstream economic community working on these issues usually finds that the costs of even quite strong action are in the neighborhood of lowering GDP by 1-4% below what it would be under business as usual (BAU). As GDP is expected to continue to grow strongly in such models, this seems to be a quite trivial cost to avoid disaster. It implies that doubling today's level of GDP will be delayed by just 1 to 2 years. Tavoni and Tol argued that these figures ignore those models which failed to be able to simulate the stronger policy scenarios. But even when they compensate for that bias they estimate that the net present value of the reduction in GDP is about 8% of BAU GDP. On the other hand, Tim Jackson argued that we need to stop economic growth in order to have any chance of dealing with climate change. This does not seem to be an uncommon view among natural scientists, environmentalists, and also many climate skeptics. Roger Pielke argues that such unprecedented decarbonization is "all but impossible". Again, the implication is then that growth must be stopped in order to reduce emissions.
So, I wondered whether mainstream climate models are somehow missing something. Specifically, are they assuming that it is easier to reduce fossil fuel use than it actually is. If the economy was less flexible - if the parameters known as elasticities of substitution were smaller - it would presumably be harder to reduce fossil use. Very little research has been published on the sensitivity of climate policy costs estimated by mainstream computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to changes in the elasticities of substitution. And what there is is not really designed to answer this question.
Our research uses McKibbin and Wilcoxen's G-Cubed model. We ran the model under BAU and four policy scenarios ranging from a 20% global cut in emissions by 2030 relative to 2010 to a 20% increase, which matches the RCP scenarios quite well.
We perturbed most of the elasticities of substitution in production and consumption (but not those between domestic and foreign goods and services) by increasing them by 50% and reducing them by 50%. We also tried some other parameter sets, including setting all elasticities to 0.5; setting all elasticities of substitution between capital, labor, energy, and materials to 0.5 and all those between fuels to one; setting all elasticities to 0.1; and setting all elasticities to 2.
Not surprisingly, as we reduce the elasticities, the cost of abating a tonne of carbon increases and vice versa. What is surprising, is the extent to which the BAU emissions path is changed. BAU emissions are reduced in the less flexible economies relative to emissions in the default model. This effect is so strong that usually the total cost of reducing emissions increases with increasing flexibility and vice versa. In fact, in our most extreme low flexibility scenario, emissions grow so slowly that the more moderate policy scenarios are not binding. Economic growth is in fact halted and so there is a much reduced climate problem to deal with. This seems to be an example of the de La Grandville hypothesis that, the greater the elasticity of substitution, the faster the rate of economic growth.
Yingying and I debated whether the growth effect is real or an artefact of our modelling. Jorgenson et al.'s study avoided the issue by looking at policy scenarios that are based on percentage reductions in emissions relative to business as usual. Babonneau et al. adjust the rates of technical change so that the BAU scenario reproduces the expected rate of economic growth in the European Commission's World Energy Technology Outlook. We believe that this is likely to be a real effect. On the other hand, G-Cubed assumes that the rate of technological is exogenous, whereas the rate would also likely vary with the elasticities of substitution. Additionally, the baseline levels of output and prices at the start of our simulation are based on the real world level of these variables which would also differ if the economy was very different. Therefore, our results are not a reliable indication of the relative performance of more and less flexible economies in the real world
So, what is the bottom line?
1. Because a less flexible economy has higher abatement costs per tonne of carbon but less emissions growth, if what we care about is the total costs of climate policy then it is not so important to get good estimates of elasticities of substitution. If we care about average and marginal costs of abatement, then these parameters are critical. We again find that the distinction between marginal and total costs of abatement is important.
2. Though stopping growth reduces the climate change problem, the reverse isn't true. We cannot find a model economy where the costs of climate mitigation are so high that such a policy would result in stopping economic growth or that mitigation cannot be achieved without stopping growth. Certainly, assuming that the economy is a lot less flexible than it is cannot generate high total costs. In fact the reverse is true.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Upcoming Presentations
I am giving a presentation to the Canberra Branch of AARES. It is at 6:30pm on Wednesday 19th March on Level 3 at UniPub on University Ave/London Circuit in Civic. It is a rerun of my presentation at the AARES Conference at Port Macquarie last month though I have updated a couple of the slides. Also presenting are my post-doc Yingying Lu and my colleague Paul Burke who is a coauthor on the paper I am presenting, which is titled: "Rethinking the emissions-income relationship in terms of growth rates”. Paul is presenting "Reducing household dependence on biomass energy in developing countries" and Yingying is presenting “Substitutability and the cost of climate mitigation policy”. The event is free for AARES members and $10 for non-members.
On Tuesday 1 April at 2pm I will be presenting the same paper at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics regular seminar series. The seminar is in Seminar Room B in the Coombs Building at ANU. This will be a longer presentation and so I will present some additional and newer results.
On Tuesday 1 April at 2pm I will be presenting the same paper at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics regular seminar series. The seminar is in Seminar Room B in the Coombs Building at ANU. This will be a longer presentation and so I will present some additional and newer results.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Call for Papers: Special Issue of AJARE on Commodity Booms
Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE)
Special issue on Resources and Energy Commodity Cycles: Maximising the Benefits of Resources and Energy Commodity Cycles
Focus
The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE) is publishing a special issue on managing mining and energy commodity cycles for publication in 2015. Submissions are welcomed.
The economic effects of commodity cycles in mining and energy sectors are a major policy topic in resource-rich countries. This Special Issue will follow a previous special issue on Mining and Resource Economics in the journal in 2012, which has been very highly cited. Submissions to the Special Issue should be focused on identifying and analysing economic drivers and impacts, as well as evaluating different policy mechanisms available to manage and ameliorate boom and bust cycles.
It is planned that the Special Issue will be released in print form in April 2015. It is anticipated that an associated Symposium or workshop on the topic will be held in Australia in early 2015 to engage policy makers in the research findings.
Timeline
· Issue Call – March 2014
· Submissions due – 15th of September 2014
· Manuscript selection – 30th of September 2014
· 1st round Reviews Due – 15th of November 2014
· Review process completed – 31st of January 2015
· Early bird publications – 28th of February 2015
· Issued in print form – April 2015
Sample topic areas
· Resource rents and taxation
· Sovereign wealth funds
· State roles to achieve benefit maximisation
· Labour force transformations in the mining sector
· Indigenous and remote area employment
· Productivity growth over a commodity cycle
· Positive and negative spillovers to other sectors / technology / workforce issues
· Impacts of price and investment boom on exchange rates, interest rates and other sectors
· Managing the transitioning from the peaks of resources and energy booms
· Historical overviews of past commodity cycles
· Managing conflicts over land use and environmental tradeoffs
· Providing infrastructure, housing and services to resource regions
· Economics of energy efficiency
· Measuring and predicting price and investment cycles
· Stranded capital and resource assets
· Sustainable mining
· Resource extraction and environmental tradeoffs
· Coal and gas market analysis
· Economics and regulation of unconventional gas
· Energy demand and supply analyses
Editors
The special issue will be coordinated by Professor John Rolfe (Central Queensland University) and Professor Quentin Grafton (Australian National University), with additional support from the AJARE Editorial team. Further information about the Special Issue can be sourced from Professor John Rolfe (Email: j.rolfe@cqu.edu.au / Phone: 61 (7) 4923 2132).
Early advice about intentions to submit would be welcomed. This can be done by emailing a prospective title and abstract to Professor John Rolfe (j.rolfe@cqu.edu.au).
Submission
Guidelines for authors and the process to submit an article to AJARE.
Special issue on Resources and Energy Commodity Cycles: Maximising the Benefits of Resources and Energy Commodity Cycles
Focus
The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE) is publishing a special issue on managing mining and energy commodity cycles for publication in 2015. Submissions are welcomed.
The economic effects of commodity cycles in mining and energy sectors are a major policy topic in resource-rich countries. This Special Issue will follow a previous special issue on Mining and Resource Economics in the journal in 2012, which has been very highly cited. Submissions to the Special Issue should be focused on identifying and analysing economic drivers and impacts, as well as evaluating different policy mechanisms available to manage and ameliorate boom and bust cycles.
It is planned that the Special Issue will be released in print form in April 2015. It is anticipated that an associated Symposium or workshop on the topic will be held in Australia in early 2015 to engage policy makers in the research findings.
Timeline
· Issue Call – March 2014
· Submissions due – 15th of September 2014
· Manuscript selection – 30th of September 2014
· 1st round Reviews Due – 15th of November 2014
· Review process completed – 31st of January 2015
· Early bird publications – 28th of February 2015
· Issued in print form – April 2015
Sample topic areas
· Resource rents and taxation
· Sovereign wealth funds
· State roles to achieve benefit maximisation
· Labour force transformations in the mining sector
· Indigenous and remote area employment
· Productivity growth over a commodity cycle
· Positive and negative spillovers to other sectors / technology / workforce issues
· Impacts of price and investment boom on exchange rates, interest rates and other sectors
· Managing the transitioning from the peaks of resources and energy booms
· Historical overviews of past commodity cycles
· Managing conflicts over land use and environmental tradeoffs
· Providing infrastructure, housing and services to resource regions
· Economics of energy efficiency
· Measuring and predicting price and investment cycles
· Stranded capital and resource assets
· Sustainable mining
· Resource extraction and environmental tradeoffs
· Coal and gas market analysis
· Economics and regulation of unconventional gas
· Energy demand and supply analyses
Editors
The special issue will be coordinated by Professor John Rolfe (Central Queensland University) and Professor Quentin Grafton (Australian National University), with additional support from the AJARE Editorial team. Further information about the Special Issue can be sourced from Professor John Rolfe (Email: j.rolfe@cqu.edu.au / Phone: 61 (7) 4923 2132).
Early advice about intentions to submit would be welcomed. This can be done by emailing a prospective title and abstract to Professor John Rolfe (j.rolfe@cqu.edu.au).
Submission
Guidelines for authors and the process to submit an article to AJARE.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Job at SPRU
Senior Research Fellow in Innovation and Energy Demand
SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research
School of Business, Management and Economics
Full time, Fixed Term for four years (with the possibility of an extension)
Salary range: starting at £46,400 and rising to £53,765 per annum
Expected start date: May 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter
Applications are invited for a Senior Research Fellow to join a new £3.7 million Research Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED), led by the Sussex Energy Group (SEG). This full time position is for a period four years, with a possible extension thereafter. The Sussex Energy Group at SPRU is one of the UK’s largest independent energy policy research groups and is a partner in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the UK Energy Research Centre.
The Centre began work in June 2013 and involves an interdisciplinary team of social scientists from the Sussex Energy Group, the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester and the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. The Centre is developing a socio-technical understanding of how ‘low-energy innovations’ emerge, how they diffuse and what impacts they have. These themes are studied through a number of projects from a range of disciplinary angles (e.g. innovation studies, socio-technical transitions, economics) and are linked to wide-ranging stakeholder engagement activities. Topics for the first round of projects include low carbon urban transport, the energy implications of 3D printing, successes and failures in low energy innovation, the diffusion of energy service contracting, achieving low energy non-domestic buildings and rebound effects in UK road transport.
SEG wishes to appoint a highly motivated individual with suitable academic experience to contribute to this wide-ranging research programme. Applications are invited from established researchers with a strong track record in a relevant discipline and expertise in energy and climate policy. The successful candidate will be expected to help shape the Centre’s research programme, design and lead research projects, conduct empirical research, participate in funding bids, engage with stakeholders and contribute to the broader work of the Sussex Energy Group.
Details:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/470
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIE510/senior-research-fellow-in-innovation-and-energy-demand/
SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research
School of Business, Management and Economics
Full time, Fixed Term for four years (with the possibility of an extension)
Salary range: starting at £46,400 and rising to £53,765 per annum
Expected start date: May 2014 or as soon as possible thereafter
Applications are invited for a Senior Research Fellow to join a new £3.7 million Research Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED), led by the Sussex Energy Group (SEG). This full time position is for a period four years, with a possible extension thereafter. The Sussex Energy Group at SPRU is one of the UK’s largest independent energy policy research groups and is a partner in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the UK Energy Research Centre.
The Centre began work in June 2013 and involves an interdisciplinary team of social scientists from the Sussex Energy Group, the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester and the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. The Centre is developing a socio-technical understanding of how ‘low-energy innovations’ emerge, how they diffuse and what impacts they have. These themes are studied through a number of projects from a range of disciplinary angles (e.g. innovation studies, socio-technical transitions, economics) and are linked to wide-ranging stakeholder engagement activities. Topics for the first round of projects include low carbon urban transport, the energy implications of 3D printing, successes and failures in low energy innovation, the diffusion of energy service contracting, achieving low energy non-domestic buildings and rebound effects in UK road transport.
SEG wishes to appoint a highly motivated individual with suitable academic experience to contribute to this wide-ranging research programme. Applications are invited from established researchers with a strong track record in a relevant discipline and expertise in energy and climate policy. The successful candidate will be expected to help shape the Centre’s research programme, design and lead research projects, conduct empirical research, participate in funding bids, engage with stakeholders and contribute to the broader work of the Sussex Energy Group.
Details:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/470
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIE510/senior-research-fellow-in-innovation-and-energy-demand/
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Checking In
I haven't been blogging much lately - things have been very busy (started teaching, trips etc.) so I haven't had time to blog on papers I have read, policy issues and the like and several projects are near completion but not quite there and so I neither have anything to report on them nor any preliminary literature review etc. I can put up as blogposts. That pretty much covers the sources of content for this blog. This should change over the next month or so as some of these projects are finalized.
There is a little news to report. My paper on "Energy and Economic Growth: The Stylized Facts" (one of the almost complete papers) was accepted for the IAEE conference in New York City. So, I expect I will go to that meeting in mid-June. We got another revise and resubmit on the traditional and modern energy paper. Another, because we already had an R&R from another journal that then rejected our revised version. The AARES conference this month was a lot of fun. It looks like some of the papers will be re-presented here in Canberra for AARES members that couldn't make it to the conference. I'll let you know when my paper is scheduled. I also will present a paper on the same topic (emissions and growth) as a seminar at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics here at ANU on 1 April. Maybe there is a reason why that date was still free :)
Last Thursday and Friday I had a research meeting with Jack Pezzey and Astrid Kander. We discussed our work on modelling the Industrial Revolution. I think we have a viable strategy for overcoming this setback. Location: Coogee Beach. Astrid has been visiting Sydney for this month working with researchers at the University of New South Wales and so Coogee was the perfect place for her to stay. Certainly, a great place for a meeting :)
There is a little news to report. My paper on "Energy and Economic Growth: The Stylized Facts" (one of the almost complete papers) was accepted for the IAEE conference in New York City. So, I expect I will go to that meeting in mid-June. We got another revise and resubmit on the traditional and modern energy paper. Another, because we already had an R&R from another journal that then rejected our revised version. The AARES conference this month was a lot of fun. It looks like some of the papers will be re-presented here in Canberra for AARES members that couldn't make it to the conference. I'll let you know when my paper is scheduled. I also will present a paper on the same topic (emissions and growth) as a seminar at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics here at ANU on 1 April. Maybe there is a reason why that date was still free :)
Last Thursday and Friday I had a research meeting with Jack Pezzey and Astrid Kander. We discussed our work on modelling the Industrial Revolution. I think we have a viable strategy for overcoming this setback. Location: Coogee Beach. Astrid has been visiting Sydney for this month working with researchers at the University of New South Wales and so Coogee was the perfect place for her to stay. Certainly, a great place for a meeting :)
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Working in Policy and Working in Academic Research
Interesting blogpost on the differences. These are of course the extreme poles between someone doing solo-authored work in economic theory and someone work hands on in government or international policy. Academic research in economics is increasingly done in teams. Most of my ongoing projects are coauthored at the moment. Despite Deirdre McCloskey's criticisms, we are also very interested in the magnitude of effects - for example the size of the rebound effect or the climate sensitivity. And if you want to get a grant (at least in Australia) you have to convince academics outside your discipline. If you want to have a policy influence you have to convince non-academics. As someone at a school of public policy that is an important part of our mission. I also prefer to answer important questions even if it is hard to give a good answer to them, rather than less important questions which can be answered better. Of course, if we can't say anything novel enough to publish we have to drop the topic. There is a "sweet spot" where the question is both important and can be answered well, but that is difficult to find.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Great New Intuitive Way to Access Climate Data
It can be hard to understand how interpret global climate data sets in the way they are usually presented. This new Google Earth based interface is really good if you just want averaged data for a few gridboxes or station level data. It is also good for visualizing the distribution of station data that supports the gridbox values. For more discussion see this blogpost on Real Climate.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Presentation at AARES Conference
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Astrid Kander Interviewed on Radio Washington Al Mundo
Following up from my post on Power to the People, Astrid was interviewed on the radio about her book. The interview starts at minute 37.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance
Monday, January 20, 2014
Draft ERA 2015 Submission Guidelines Released
This document provides a helpful list of changes from ERA 2012 to ERA 2015. The changes are minor. A good one, is a clampdown on abuse of affiliated researchers - some universities submitted a lot of publications by foreign-based researchers that they claimed as affiliates that did not include any mention of the university submitting the publication to ERA. So it looks like that for the moment the aim of measuring the broader impact of research as the UK REF is attempting to do has been shelved. At least as part of the ERA exercise.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Power to the People
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Scooped
This is how I feel today:
The positives are that: I'm not a PhD student, we won't waste time on doing the research, and it must have been a good idea (unfortunately an obvious one for those who know the various literatures). Well, I had better read the (working) paper in detail and see if we still have an angle. If we have an angle all will be revealed in due course.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
ARC Discovery Projects 2015 Funding Rules Released
The ARC released the funding rules for the current grant round. A single document now also includes the rules for the DECRA, Laureate fellowships, and Discovery Indigenous Grants. A separate document reveals the specific changes to the Discovery program in this round compared to previous rounds. The most important changes, I think, are that :
- You can now apply for five years of funding rather than just three.
- There are no DORA fellowships for 2015!
- The limit on publication costs of 2% of non-salary part of the budget (which could be very little in many cases) is abolished and now you need to justify specifically the publication costs on the proposal.
- International Collaboration Awards are no longer awarded on a pro rata basis but up to $20k and up to 12 months.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Harvard MIT Atlas of Economic Complexity
This is an interesting effort to assess the complexity of production and the level of local production knowledge across the countries of the world. The index of economic complexity is derived from the diversity and ubiquity of the goods which countries export. The rich data available on world trade is the strength of the indicator but also its weakness. It doesn't take into account of course any of the sophistication a country might have on the service side of the economy or in non-tradables. Australia ranks very badly. Based on the index the Zimbabwean and Australian economies have the same level of sophistication. Australia's complexity has also declined as minerals have increasingly dominated exports over time. With the upcoming demise of Holden and Ford, Australia is going to look even less sophisticated. Obviously, the Australian economy doesn't produce as wide a range of sophisticated products as the major industrial exporters. Still, it does seem that it has more sophisticated knowledge than the developing economies it ranks with in this analysis.
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