I just learned yesterday from Condi Rice that my old Hoover Institution colleague and longtime friend Tom Moore has passed away. He died on August 23. He was 93.
Tom was an excellent economist. He submitted the article entitled “Trucking Deregulation”. The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics1993, which later became, after the rights were returned to me The concise encyclopedia of economics. When I subsequently put together the second edition of The concise encyclopedia of economicsTom wrote an update titled “Deregulation of Surface Transportation.”
Tom was one of the first proponents of deregulation. At a forum on inflation held by President Ford in 1974, Tom distributed a statement calling for deregulation of transportation, airlines, energy and a number of other sectors. (I’m going off the top of my head here. The copy he gave me was destroyed in the 2007 fire in my office.) If I remember correctly, he has the vast majority of economists, a group that includes many Democrats and Republicans alike. belonged, were encouraged to sign the declaration. .
Tom also wrote the article ‘Global Warming: A Balance Sheet’ for the second edition of the Concise Encyclopedia. I reread his piece as background for this post. I am encouraged by how well some of his analyzes still hold up almost twenty years after he was written.
Here’s an excerpt:
The media and many others have attributed every possible weather event to global warming, from more to less climate variability, from more rainfall to more drought, and from more intense winter storms to fewer and weaker peaks of cold weather. But an examination of its likely effects provides little basis for that bleak view. According to the IPCC, global warming would warm winters more than summers, produce more precipitation and lead to greater temperature increases at higher latitudes – that is, in already cold areas – than at the equator.
How would climate affect economies? The climate mainly affects agriculture, forestry and fishing. For the United States, these three total less than 2 percent of GDP. The manufacturing sector, most service sectors and almost all extractive industries are immune to the direct effects of climate change. Factories can be built almost anywhere: in northern Sweden or Canada, in Texas, Central America or Mexico. Banking, insurance, medical services, retail, education and a wide range of other services can thrive in both warm climates (with air conditioning) and cold ones (with central heating). A warmer climate will reduce transportation costs: less snow and ice will plague truckers and motorists; fewer winter storms will disrupt air travel; bad weather in summer has less disturbing consequences and passes quickly; fewer storms and less fog make shipping less risky. Higher temperatures will leave mining and extractive industries largely unaffected; oil drilling in the northern seas and mining in the mountains could even benefit.
A number of services, such as tourism, may be more sensitive to weather conditions. A warmer climate would likely change the nature and location of pleasure travel. For example, many ski resorts may experience less reliable cold weather and shorter seasons. Warmer conditions may also mean that fewer northerners feel the need to vacation in Florida or the Caribbean. At the same time, new tourism opportunities could develop in Alaska, northern Canada and other areas at higher latitudes or higher elevations. Shorter winters would benefit most outdoor recreation, such as golfing, hiking, tennis and picnicking.
In many parts of the world, warmer weather should mean longer growing seasons. If the world were to warm, the warmer climate would increase evaporation from the seas and would likely lead to more precipitation worldwide. In addition, the enrichment of the atmosphere with CO2would fertilize plants, which ensures more vigorous growth. The IPCC assessment of warming is that “a few degrees of expected warming will lead to an overall increase in crop yields in temperate regions, with some regional variation” (IPCC 2001, p. 32). Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish environmentalist and statistician, reported that with moderate adjustment by farmers, warming would increase grain production in richer countries by 4 to 14 percent, while decreasing it by 6 to 7 percent in poorer countries (2001 , p. 288). The US Department of Agriculture, in a cautious report, assessed the likely impact of global warming and concluded that the overall effect on world food production would be somewhat positive and that agricultural prices would therefore likely decline (Kane et al. 1991).
Global warming could melt glaciers and cause sea levels to rise, flooding low-lying areas, including some islands and delta areas. The IPCC’s highest estimate of sea level rise by the year 2100 is one meter. Economists such as William Cline, William Nordhaus, and Richard Morgenstern, using this one-meter assumption, have estimated the cost of building dikes and levees and land loss to the United States at $7 billion to $10.6 billion per year, or approximately $0.1 billion per year. percent of US GDP. For some small, low-lying island states the problems would be much more serious; in some cases they can even be completely submerged.
The entire piece is well worth reading, as are his two pieces on transportation deregulation.
Today or tomorrow, depending on my time constraints, I will share on my Substack my story about how I came across Tom’s work in 1972. I’ll post the link here.