economic models

Re-Occupy Main Street: Entrepreneurs revive down-and-out business districts

Designer Will Phillips (pictured) and John Bolster have opened Sandtown Millworks in a former bank with help from a Operation:Storefront grant.Photo: Elizabeth Evitts DickinsonLast week kicked off that special time of year when indulgence and guilt face off in the ultimate death match, prompting headlines like this one in the “healthy living” section of the […]

All about the food: The NYT on the ‘future of manufacturing’

Coffee roasting at San Francisco’s Ritual: the future of manufacturing? Photo: Scott Beale of Liquid SquidI wanted to love Allison Arieff’s New York Times opinionator piece on how “The Future of Manufacturing Is Local.” It presents a vision of a world I want to live in: cities revitalized by small, artisanal manufacturing; a revival and […]

Costs of inaction: the economics of high-end warming

Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the science and economics of climate change as great as in the dueling metaphors governing the impact of high-end warming: “collapse” (following scientist Jared Diamond) vs. “reductions in the rate of growth” (following all standard integrated assessment models in economics, including those of Nicholas Stern and the IPCC). By […]

With food-system reform slowed to a crawl, local initiatives come to fore

Food-policy reform at the national level isn't getting anywhere fast. But don't get depressed; organize at the local level!

'Collaborative consumption' can put your underused stuff to work [VIDEO]

Rachel Botsman, coauthor of a book on collaborative consumption, details a 21st century economy rising up to take advantage of all our unused stuff.

Mythbusting: Cheap food does not equal higher quality of life

Does our cheap food system bring us higher quality of life than other countries? A food industry flack believes so, but facts suggest otherwise. And I'm starting to think that we can't really reform the food system until we reform the economy.

Increasing consumer demand in China won't save us

In a much-celebrated recent article, ace reporter David Leonhardt argues that China can bail out the U.S. by transforming itself into the "world's next great consumer society." Given the specter of climate change, is this really the best way out of our economic abyss?

Environmentalists Need to Reclaim Economics

My book entitled, What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics, comes out this week. The aim is simple: to show in a concise and clear manner why economic reasoning and analysis is crucial for solving the world’s major environmental problems. But there is a subtext: environmentalists have often been wary of economics and dismissed economic […]

The Clean Air Act has been cheaper and more effective than industry predicts, again and again

For decades, industry economists have overestimated the cost of air-quality regulations. A new report finds the Clean Air Act has been a bargain.