Rethinking the Economy

When I lived in the Bay Area, I did what Mark Mykleby said we should do: I biked to work. I don’t in DC, and it isn’t just the awful summer weather. It’s simple — I don’t want to die.
In DC, I have friends here who bike to work every day. They tell [...]

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Mark Mykleby, a friend of Thomas Friedman who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Office of the Chairman, published a letter in “his hometown paper, the Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina,” about the BP oil disaster. Friedman liked the letter so much he republished it in his column.
This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s [...]

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Portland Mayor Sam Adams has an ambitious goal:
We’re also working to make every section of Portland a complete 20-minute neighborhood to strengthen our local economy. Two-thirds of all trips in Portland and in most American cities are not about getting to and from work. So if I can offer quality, affordable goods and services, [...]

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The International City/County Management Association just came out with an report, Getting Smart About Climate Change, that’s a nice example of Principle #2, Place Your Bets. It uses case studies to illustrate nine strategies cities and counties are using to combat global warming:
1. Create more sustainable and resilient communities
2. Green the local economy
3. Engage [...]

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[Part 7 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
The case I’ve laid out over the last six posts is not an argument against using markets as a tool. As I’ve said, for example, despite all the problems with cap and trade it’s certainly possible that this usage of markets could be [...]

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[Part 6 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
One of the fundamental principles underlying a market-based framework is that through consumer choice, everyone gets a say. Some bureaucrat doesn’t decide what shoes you get to wear, you do. If you decide hot pink ballerina slippers or combat boots — or hot pink [...]

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[Part 5 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
It’s easy to understand why economists love market-based frameworks: they’re elegantly simple. Set the right prices and everything follows. Or as Krugman wrote about solving the climate crisis:
Econ 101 tells us — probably correctly — that the only way to get people to [...]

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[Part 4 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
If you’ve ever heard someone preach the joys of a market-based solution, odds are at some point they’ve said, government regulations/bureaucrats can’t be smarter than the market — the economy’s just too complicated. But as we saw last week, creating a market-based solution runs [...]

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While working on yesterday’s post, I found a lot of interesting analysis of cap and trade. In case you’re a glutton for geeky green punishment, a few more tidbits:
A great series by Eric De Place making some of the strongest arguments in favor of carbon emissions trading.
In response to a Wall Street Journal [...]

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[Part 3 of Values-based vs. Market-based Approaches to the Economy]
As we saw yesterday, the strongest argument for a market-based framework is that it allows for decentralized, flexible, creative solutions vs. what Krugman calls “a ‘command and control’ fix that issues specific instructions in the form of regulations.”
That’s the theory. But step [...]

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