Want to play golf like Tiger Woods? The trick may be to play against him. A study conducted by Agriculture and Natural Resources Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Brown has shown that golfers may actually play better when pitted against a superstar like Woods. Brown analyzed over twenty thousand golf matches and factored in weather and course conditions to determine that golfers played an average of one stroke better when facing off against Woods.
Notice a rise in the cost of a loaf of bread at the supermarket? You’re not alone. Overall, retail food prices in the United States have increased 4.4 percent in the last year. Other parts of the world have been harder hit and extreme food shortages have lead to riots and civil unrest.
David Zilberman, professor of Agriculture and Resources Economics at CNR, has been studying food trends for thirty years. He thinks drought, biofuels, transportation costs as well as increased income and demand for food imports in Asia are responsible for the increase in food prices.
Continue reading "Global Food Shortages: A Lasting Problem?" »
The growth in China's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates, making the goal of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases even more difficult, according to a new analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Diego.
Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same time period.
This week, Slate.com's Joel Waldfogel considers "The Tiger Woods Effect -- How Tiger throws off golf's incentive structure."
Strong competitors are generally thought to bring out the best in everyone, but what if the competition is so strong it makes the top prize feel out of reach? Can strong competition actually undermine a reward structure? A new study by Jennifer Brown of UC Berkeley provides an answer to this question by looking at the world of professional golf, with Tiger Woods playing the role of the strong competitor.
Zubin Jelveh's Odd Numbers blog on Conde Nast Portfolio.com first noted the work on the "(Adverse) Effect of Competing with Superstars."
Two CNR faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Robert L. Fischer, professor of plant and microbial biology, was recognized "for distinguished contributions to the study of epigenetic processes through pioneering work on plant gene imprinting, DNA demethylation and Polycomb group proteins."
Richard B. Norgaard, professor of agricultural and resource economics and of energy and resources, was recognized "for path-breaking contributions to environmental and ecological economics and for improving the scientific content of public and policy discourse on sustainability and the future."
In all, there were 10 fellows from UC Berkeley among the 471 academics honored in 2007 "for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications."
Continue reading "Two CNR Scientists named fellows of AAAS" »
by Sarah Yang, UCB Media Relations
A renewed focus on agricultural development is critical to successfully reducing global poverty and hunger, according to a new World Bank report co-authored by Alain de Janvry, professor of agricultural and resource economics and of public policy.
The report, "World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development," was released today (Friday, Oct. 19), at the World Bank's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
"What we're hoping to do with this report is put agriculture back on the map," said Alain de Janvry, who was also co-director of the report. "The agricultural sector in developing nations has been underfunded for the past two decades. The Millennium Development Goal of cutting poverty and hunger in developing nations by half by 2015 is not going to be achieved unless more attention is paid to where the world's poor are and what they do."
Continue reading "ARE Professor Co-Directs World Bank Report" »
Several CNR faculty and alumni from the department of Agriculture and Resource Economics were honored with awards from the American Agricultural Economics Association at that group's 2007 annual meeting in July.
Professor David Zilberman and his co-editors were given the association’s Quality of Communication Award for their book on the regulation of GMOs, Regulating Agricultural Biotechnology.
Zilberman also received an award for Outstanding Article in the Review of Agricultural Economics for his article "Adoption of Bt Cotton and Impact Variability: Insights from India."
Professor Jeffery LaFrance was named the American Agricultural Economics Association Fellow.
Meridith Fowlie, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan who received her Ph.D. at ARE in 2006, was honored for her Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation, "Firm Behavior in Pollution Permit Markets." (See related working paper.) Professors Jeffrey Perloff and Severin Borenstein were her advisers.
Finally, The Publication of Enduring Quality Award was given to Robert Innes, who earned his ARE Ph.D. in 1986, currently a professor at the University of Arizona.
This op-ed, by Assistant Professor Max Auffhammer and UCSD economist Richard Carson, originally appeared in the Washington Post on August 2, 2007.
China is about to emerge as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, a position the United States has held since 1890. Now is the time for China to take the lead in finding a way to reduce global emissions, which the United States has thus far failed to do. It should start by imposing a sizable tax on the carbon content of its fossil fuel consumption and by heading an effort among other major trading countries to do the same.
Graduation day is a significant and memorable event in one's life time. It marks a transition from one phase of life to another. It is, therefore, an immense privilege for me to be here today, to celebrate with you this significant day for the graduands, faculty, administration and parents.
Congratulations to all of you!
Continue reading "Commencement address by Dr. Florence Wambugu, CEO, Africa Harvest" »
Professor J. Keith Gilless has been appointed interim dean of the College of Natural Resources effective July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. Gilless joined the faculty in1983 and is professor of Forest Economics and Management jointly in the departments of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and of Agricultural and Resource Economics. He is currently serving as the executive associate dean of the College and will succeed Dean Paul Ludden, who has accepted the position of provost and vice president for academic affairs at Southern Methodist University.
The College of Natural Resources Citation is CNR’s highest award and was created to honor groups or individuals who have made exceptional contributions to CNR. This year’s recipients are advisory board member Jim Lugg and Professor David Zilberman.
Jim Lugg, president of FreshExpress and an alum of CNR, has been a major supporter of the college. “Jim Lugg is one of the advisory board’s most active members, continuing on the executive committee following his chairmanship, as co-chair of the development committee,” writes nominator Kass Green. “He is always willing to participate in student events and lend his professionalism and expertise to the student experience. His love and enthusiasm for his profession are infectious.”
David Zilberman, professor of agriculture and resource economics, has been affiliated with CNR for the last 34 years dating from when he enrolled in the ARE Ph.D. program. He has served as the director of the Giannini Foudation of Agriculture and Resource Economics and established the Center for Sustainable Resource Development, among other achievements. Professor Anthony Fisher writes of Zilberman: “David has, over the many years of his association with the College, made an extraordinary series of contributions, that are in substantial measure responsible for the quality, the visibility and the reputation of the college today.”
Continue reading "Professor David Zilberman and Board Member Jim Lugg Honored with CNR Citation" »
Assistant Professor Max Auffhammer may be a relative newcomer on the Berkeley campus, but he has already made a big difference. Auffhammer, who has taught at Berkeley since 2003, is the recipient of this year’s CNR Young Faculty/CE Specialist Award. He has a joint appointment in the department of Agriculture and Resource Economics and International Area Studies. Auffhammer has developed two new courses as well as a seminar for students completing their dissertation. His students say “Amazing Max is one of the best professors I’ve had at Berkeley; he’s down to earth, accessible, friendly, and funny.”
In addition, Auffhammer has made significant contributions in research. “He has at least seven publications and many other papers under review or in progress. He has received at least ten grants to support his research, and his reputation is increasing yearly,” writes ARE department chair Jeff Perloff. “He is off to a good start on a research career, extremely hard working, an outstanding teacher, a spectacularly cooperative member of the faculty, and generous in his public service.”
Continue reading "Assistant Professor Auffhammer Receives CNR Young Faculty/CE Specialist Award" »
From the Associated Press:
Increased production of biofuels such as ethanol might help farmers' bottom lines and address climate-change concerns, but it could inflate food prices worldwide, warns a former White House economist.
"Worldwide, especially in developing countries ... food price increases are definitely something we're going to have to come to grips with," said David Sunding, who served on former President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.
Sunding, an [agricultural resources and economics] professor at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke on March 26 to water experts at a conference at the University of Nebraska.
The combination of rising energy prices and the demand for corn, which is used to produce ethanol, will continue to drive up commodity prices, he said.
Corn prices have already begun to soar. A rush to turn more land into corn production could decrease supplies of other commodities, driving up prices of them as well.
The resulting higher market prices could then dampen the public's support for government subsidies that are designed to help farmers reap profits when markets are down.
Sunding envisioned a scenario in which price supports for farmers are replaced by another government program — one to purchase food to keep prices affordable and prevent hunger.
Energy costs will also be a factor, said Sunding, who predicted that "ag policy will ... become energy policy."
"The ag sector," he added, "is so vulnerable to energy price changes."
Higher fuel costs affect farm operations that depend on irrigation and make it more expensive for farmers to transport their crops.
A study released last month by the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the federal government that provides energy statistics, forecasts that world oil prices might decrease over the next five or six years, then steadily increase over the next two decades.
Thanks to Congress, the U.S. "sprang forward" three weeks early this year, and daylight savings time will last one week longer in the fall. The idea behind the switch is energy conservation.
But as reported here in January, two ARE researchers, doctoral students Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff, found that a similar switch in Australia didn't meet the mark. Now that the the bleary-eyed mornings and brighter evenings are upon us, their work is getting a lot more attention:
Daylight Savings Might Not Save Energy (Video - ABC News)
Does daylight-saving time really save energy? (ScienceBlogs)
Daylight Savings Time: Energy Dud? (Discovery Channel News)
Economists find no difference in electricity usage when Australia moved time change back (Contra Costa Times)
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has awarded the Cozzarelli Prize to ARE assistant professor Max Auffhammer and his co-authors for their 2006 paper showing that reductions of human-generated 
air pollution could create unexpected agricultural benefits in one of the world's poorest regions.
Auffhammer, along with co-authors from UC San Diego, analyzed historical data on Indian rice harvests and found that harvests would have been 20 to 25 percent higher during some years in the 1990s if certain negative climate impacts had not occurred.
Just six papers, out of the 3,300 research articles published in PNAS in 2006, were chosen for the Cozzarelli prize.
The award, originally named the "Paper of the Year Prize," recognizes recently published PNAS articles of scientific excellence and originality. The lab motto of Nick Cozzarelli, the late Editor-in-Chief, was "Blast ahead," as he encouraged researchers to push the envelope of discovery. In his honor, this year the award was renamed the Cozzarelli Prize.
Integrated model shows that atmospheric brown clouds and greenhouse gases have reduced rice harvests in India by Maximilian Auffhammer, V. Ramanathan, and Jeffrey R. Vincent.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order calling for California to establish the world's first carbon standard for transportation fuels. (Read about it in the Governor's op-ed here.)
Relying on research by David Roland-Holst, adjunct professor in ARE, the governor writes:
The University of California estimates our greenhouse gas emissions goals will increase our gross state product by $60 billion and create more than 20,000 new jobs. The time is now for America to transition to a clean-energy economy.... I am very pleased to be able to announce that California is leading the way.
The faculty of each of CNR's departments have been ranked among the top 5 in their fields, according to a new "Scholarly Productivity Index," with the Plant Biology program ranked #1 in the nation.
The rankings, assessed by the private company Academic Analytics, are based on measurements of faculty productivity in terms of publications, federal-grant dollars awarded, and honors and awards.
Data from the 2005 rankings -- which are not without their share of controversy -- were published and explained in depth in The Chronicle of Higher Education (available by subscription here).
UC Berkeley doctoral programs from within CNR received impressive rankings:
Agricultural economics - 3
Botany and plant biology - 1
Microbiology - 3
Nutrition - 3
Toxicology - 2
Environmental Science - 4
A full list of UC Berkeley rankings is here.
Springing forward may not help save energy, according to a study by two graduate students in Agricultural and Resource Economics.
From Bloomberg:
U.S. plans to cut electricity usage by lengthening daylight saving time may backfire, the report said. Lengthening daylight saving time by several weeks was included in energy legislation passed in 2005, with the goal of saving energy equivalent to 100,000 barrels of oil a day.Extending daylight saving time may actually result in increased electricity demand as additional usage during morning hours cancels out the reduced demand in the evening, according to the Berkeley study. The paper analyzed electricity usage in Australia, which lengthened its daylight saving time by two months while hosting the 2000 Olympics.
``There is no evidence that extending daylight saving time will lead to energy savings,'' said Hendrik Wolff, one of the study's authors, in an interview. ``Actually, there is evidence that it may lead to a little higher energy consumption.''
Some eBay users are artificially boosting their reputations by buying and selling feedback on the Internet auction site, according to John Morgan, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and Jennifer Brown, a doctoral student in Agricultural and Resource Economics.
This editorial by Professor David Sunding appeared Dec. 28, 2006, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order to begin implementation of a market-based compliance program encouraging businesses to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is clearly a step in the right direction toward cleaning our air of harmful carbon particulates. The next step is to make it financially attractive enough for businesses to comply with the program.
Continue reading "Bringing carbon buyers and sellers to market" »
Continue reading "Reducing pollution could increase rice harvests in India" »
Matthew Stuckey, fourth year in Environmental Economics and Policy and Conservation Resource Studies, is researching how the butterfly Colias behrii colonized the Sierra Nevada.
Through mentorship with Professor George Roderick and graduate student Sean Schoville, Stuckey has been working on cloning nuclear genes to assess genetic variation within and among populations of C. behrii.
Roderick’s team is using genetics to understand how organisms have colonized new areas. SPUR funds have helped provide chemicals and lab supplies necessary for molecular cloning – a technique essential for Stukey’s research.
The SPUR program also benefits the mentors who work closely with undergraduates on their research. For Schoville, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, having Stuckey's help has been a huge benefit. “These undergraduates are some of the brightest students,” he says. “Working with them gives me a great opportunity to see their minds grow and mature.”
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Continue reading "Tours begin of eco-friendly "green apartment"" »
From a letter to the Sacramento Bee by Prof. Michael Hanemann:
I disagree with Margo Thorning's dire prediction of economic doom from the Assembly Bill 32 legislation requiring statewide reductions in greenhouse gases by 2020.
A new report delivered to state legislators and led by ARE Professor David Roland-Host says that returning California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as envisioned by pending global warming legislation, could significantly stimulate the state economy.
Continue reading "Report: Climate action will boost state economy" »
