by Shawn Regan In today’s Boston Globe, columnist Jeff Jacoby says he’s not too excited about a recent household recycling campaign in Brookline, MA. But, he writes, “things could be worse.” Clevelanders will soon have to use recycling carts equipped with radio-frequency ID chips, the Plain Dealer reported last month. These will enable the city to remotelyContinue reading “Greener Than Thou: Recycling Edition”
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Get excited about recycling? Not me
Recyling household trash makes people feel warm and fuzzy, but its not good for the environment.
Cheney Lake Watershed: Farming Water Quality in Kansas
Kansas farmers have adopted land management practices that improve water quality for residents of Wichita and protect fish and wildlife habitat without harming agricultural production.
An Unlikely Thumbs Down for Proposition 21
by Laura Huggins One could argue that California’s leading newspapers are one vast left-wing conspiracy. But as a friend of mine, Bill Whalen with the Hoover Institution pointed out today, “not all papers think alike—and certainly not their editorial boards.” Case in point: Proposition 21, which if approved would impose an $18 vehicle-license surcharge to helpContinue reading “An Unlikely Thumbs Down for Proposition 21”
Keeping Industries and Environmentalists Happy
Freeing up the bidding process will result in a win-win for the environment and energy development.
The Fiscal Effect of Stimulus: Evidence from “Cash for Clunkers”
by Pete Geddes If I ever get a tatoo, it will read: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” (F.A. Hayek) From a new paper by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi: We examine the ability of the government to increaseContinue reading “The Fiscal Effect of Stimulus: Evidence from “Cash for Clunkers””
Wolf Compensation Continues in the Southwest
by Shawn Regan For over two decades, Defenders of Wildlife has paid out more than $1.4 million to livestock owners that have had livestock killed by wolves. With wolf numbers on the rise, Defenders recently announced they were ending their compensation program, but it appears–at least for the Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and NewContinue reading “Wolf Compensation Continues in the Southwest”
Wolves, Mosques, and Other Environmental Problems
Most environmental issues involve resource conflicts. One person wants to use a river to carry away her waste products, while another one wants to swim and fish in the same stream. Often these uses conflict and collide. A modern example of how “enviropreneurs,” or environmental entrepreneurs, come to see these conflicts involves wolf restoration toContinue reading “Wolves, Mosques, and Other Environmental Problems”
Terry Anderson on C-SPAN
by Laura Huggins Don’t miss PERC’s Executive Director, Terry Anderson, discussing free market environmentalism on C-SPAN. He models some funny hats too!
Why Is Parking Free?
by Wally Thurman
Tyler Cowen has recently promoted the idea that parking in America is costly and inappropriately provided mostly for free. Summarizing a recent book by Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking, he argues that at zero price, Americans park their cars a lot and generate congestion and impose costs on others. Among the problems he cites: local zoning boards require stores to build a minimum number of parking spaces–more than they would choose absent coercion. Cowen argues that it would improve resource allocation if such requirements were eliminated, the end result being fewer parking spaces and, presumably, stores charging for their use.
Cowen’s observations are intriguing–they suggest that free market proponents should urge planning boards to free big-box retailers from the yoke of parking requirements. Let the market speak and it will say that parking–unlike information on the internet–does not want to be free.
While still digesting Cowen’s observations, I awoke today to a letter to the editor in my hometown Raleigh News & Observer, written by environmental resource conservation professor George Hess of North Carolina State University. In his off hours, Hess serves on the Land Use Review Board of Knightdale North Carolina. He writes that his board does, indeed, stipulate minimum numbers of parking spaces that a retail development should have. (It also stipulates maximums.) But, he observes, developers never propose to build parking lots of just the minimum size and often seek to build more parking spaces than the board’s maximum. At least in the case of Knightdale (near Lizard Lick, by the way), the government restriction that Cowen worries about is never binding.
If Hess’s experience is the norm–and I don’t know that it is or isn’t–then I see no market-based opposition to free parking. It may be unsound to have a retail society based on free parking. But it is unlikely due to government regulation.
Suppose that Hess’s experience generalizes: that free parking at retail stores is not the result of government regulation. We’re left with the question of why stores provide free parking when they do (they don’t in Manhattan.) I see two possible answers.