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Showing posts from December, 2012

Do Consumers Benefit from Energy Efficiency Regulations?

I have a new working paper with Xiaomei (Barbara) Chen, an NCSU graduate student who is on the job market this year, and Larry Dale and Hung-Chia Yang of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  LBL does a lot of work on energy efficiency regulations, and they asked us to do some data analysis to accompany new energy efficiency standards that were being proposed by the Department of Energy.  They had already done a lot of engineering analysis that typically goes along with these rules. But OMB was looking for an historical account of past standards, particularly the last time DOE increased standards for washers in 2007.  This paper comes out of that work. This is a new area of research for me, and this paper could use some additional analysis if we can obtain the right data to do it. But even without that data, I think it presents some fairly compelling evidence that energy efficiency regulations may be beneficial in ways not typically considered Here's the jist

Rest in Peace Jon Brandt, 1947-2012

As many readers of this blog may already know, Dr. Jon Brandt , Chair of my former department, NCSU's Agricultural and Resource Economics, died just after Thanksgiving. His passing was a devastating blow and a big surprise to me and everyone I've spoken to about it.  He seemed to be the healthiest mid-60s man I knew. Jon had a long and decorated career, but I knew him mainly as my boss.  It's often said that chairing an academic department is like herding cats, because academics can have large egos and sharply contrary views and opinions.  Yet Jon did this happily, and to the apparent satisfaction of everyone, for a record 20 years.   I certainly appreciated his support during a delicate period in my career. A special purpose fund is being developed by the AAEA (kudos to Barry Goodwin) to fund an annual Jon Brandt Policy Forum  in case anyone would like to contribute.