Favorites July 5 2021

I’ve got some original art at the end of this one, exciting!

Caleb Watney @calebwatney

New NBER paper calculates the magnitude of the "zoning tax" in different metro areas and compares it to median household income. I.e. in SF, it takes ~4x the median household income to pay for the zoning strictness on a plot of land zoned for single-family housing.

Here's the paper. I know what you're thinking, but no "This relationship is not mechanically driven as the regulatory index is constructed from survey data that do not incorporate land or house price data in any way"

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Earlier today I tweeted some stats about economics professors are left of center but less so than professors in other disciplines which leads to a misperception of economists as conservative. All day people have been mad at me about this but nobody seems to dispute the facts.

People on twitter who are left of 95% of the US population spend their time calling people who are left of 80% of the population 'conservative'.

Sean Dague #ClimateAction @sdague

Air pollution inhibits crop growth, and a pretty measurable amount of increased yield comes from shutting down coal plants! Getting rid of dirty energy makes the world better in so many ways.

news.stanford.eduClean air boosts crop yields | Stanford NewsThe analysis estimates pollution reductions between 1999 and 2019 contributed to about 20 percent of the increase in corn and soybean yield gains during that period – an amount worth about $5 billion per year.

Five billion dollars worth of increased crop yields over 20 years, a fifth of the increase in yields over the period.

PopeyesWorld @PopeyesWorld

Palm trees on fire in #bakersfield behind Superior Market on Union and California. #fourthofjuly2021

Credit to @siracusa for the idea.

I actually made a version with audio as well, not sure what to do with it…