Marginal Revolution

William F. Buckley has died

Here is one account.  I never considered myself a Buckleyite conservative but as a kid I was much taken by his show Firing Line.  It is the first time I was exposed to Hayek (I recall that Buckley blew apart his critique of social justice with a single question), or for that matter Milton Friedman, or for that matter Johann Sebastian Bach.  Here are many obituaries.  Here is lots of YouTube, recommended.

Addendum: Here is Ilya Somin on Buckley.

Daylight savings time increases energy usage

There is a natural experiment from the recent switch away from DST in Indiana.  Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant report:

Our main finding is that—contrary to the policy’s intent—DST increases residential electricity demand. Estimates of the overall increase range from 1 to 4 percent, but we find that the effect is not constant throughout the DST period. There is some evidence of electricity savings during the spring, but the effect lessens, changes sign, and appears to cause the greatest increase in consumption near the end of the DST period in the fall. These findings are consistent with simulation results that point to a tradeoff between reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling. Based on the dates of DST practice before the 2007 extensions, we estimate a cost of increased electricity bills to Indiana households of $8.6 million per year. We also estimate social costs of increased pollution emissions that range from $1.6 to $5.3 million per year.

In other words, with DST less is spent on light but more is spent on air conditioning.  Here is a summary article on the work, from today's WSJ.  Do note this:

There may also be social benefits to daylight-saving time that weren't covered in the research. When the extension of daylight-saving time was proposed by Mr. Markey, he cited studies that noted "less crime, fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time and increased economic activity" with the extra sunlight in the evening.

Tyler and I Have a New Business

Mike Moffatt has signed up with Stickk.com to try to lose some weight and he wrote to Tyler and myself.

I need to find people to give the money to if I fail, so I thought I'd ask the Economics blogging community for help. If you agree then if I fail at my goal, I will pay Marginal Revolution, or the charity of your choice, $100. 

Here is my response to Mike:

Hmmmm....I am not sure whether to be pleased at the prospect of a free $100 or upset that you consider $100 in our hands to be such good motivation!  Speaking personally, however, I understand the difficulty of losing weight thus I want you to know that if we receive the $100 we will not send it to India, we will not give the money to cancer research, we will not give the money to any cute animals instead we will use your money to squash the poor, to fight against universal health care, and to gas up our Hummer.  Moreover, we will do this while drinking fine wine, smoking cigars, eating foie gras and laughing uproariously.

There that ought to help.

If there are other left-wingers out there who would like more motivation to accomplish their life goals then do know that Tyler and I are here to help.

Moral puzzles about collective action

If I don’t fly from London to my sister’s wedding in New Zealand she will be upset, I will cause her pain and so that’s morally bad. If I do fly to my sister’s wedding in New Zealand I will put about four tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which will contribute to climate change, which, according to the World Health Organisation, already causes about 150,000 deaths every year. Clearly that’s also morally bad. Which is the morally correct thing to do?

That question is considered by Will Wilkinson.  Don't argue the facts of carbon emissions (you can choose another scenario if you wish), focus on the moral dilemma.  Will says fly, the plane is going anyway.  That makes my brain hurt with game theory and the probability of threshold effects and triggers.  (Isn't there some chance that your patronage, eventually, sets another flight in motion, if only stochastically?)  Under an alternative approach, say you are allowed some quota of carbon emissions; otherwise suicide or residence in Iceland as a pedestrian would be required.

Your net carbon impact depends far more on the number of children you will have than any other variable; remember good environmentalism uses a zero rate of discount.  So people with no biological children should be allowed to fly a lot and people with lots of biological children should not get to fly so much at all.  Is that so far from the reality we observe?

Here is a good new piece on our carbon footprints.