Helping the Environment Is Nice. Helping Yourself Is OK, Too.

A UCLA Economist Argues That More People Will Embrace ‘Green’ Consumption If They Get a Personal Benefit

Homo sapiens are hardwired to consume, a habit that’s taking a heavy—and potentially catastrophic—environmental toll. But pleading with people to stop driving gas-guzzling SUVs or eating red meat may not be enough to save the planet, unless you can also offer some personal incentive or private benefit to individuals that will make them alter their consumption patterns.

That idea forms the core of a new book, The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market with the Planet, co-written by Magali Delmas, an economist at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. It also was …

Risk-Taking Is Profitable—but Perilous in Our Interdependent World

From Freeway Speeding to Financial Instruments, Big Gambles Can Spin into Disaster

Risks are inherent in life and so, over the centuries, people have devised many mechanisms to pool and reduce risks.

These institutions range from families to religious tithing to formal …

Why Building More Freeways Makes Traffic Worse, Not Better

To Ease L.A. Gridlock, We Need Improved Mass Transit and Smart Urban Planning

In 1865, British economist William Stanley Jevons wrote an influential essay entitled “The Coal Question.” Today his insights are interesting to me not as they relate to coal, but rather …

For a More Open Society, Keep the Internet Neutral

Metering Traffic or Filtering Speech Would Throttle Democracy and Innovation

Why would someone who spent much of his career working for a multinational telecommunications company care so much about preserving “net neutrality?”

That someone would be me. I worked for Vodafone, …

How Iceland’s Rugged Viking Heritage Helped Salvage Its Economy

The Nordic Nation Fought Back Against Its Creditors, Then Rebuilt Its Wrecked Banking System

What can we learn from the Vikings?

I usually write in this space about the economies of the Pacific Rim, and the lessons they hold for policymakers in the United States. …