This blog post is quite a departure from my typical ones about climate change economics and policy and/or my latest podcast. It’s actually stimulated by comments that were offered by my colleague, Jim Stock, at the conclusion of this past Wednesday’s Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy.
At the beginning of the seminar, before introducing the day’s excellent presenter, Anna Russo, I announced two changes/improvements in the Seminar starting in the spring semester. One is that after 35 years of hosting the seminar series – first solo for 2 years, then 28 years with Marty Weitzman, and most recently 5 years with Jim Stock (that’s 70 semesters and a total of more than 500 seminars) – I was delighted to state that my Harvard Kennedy School colleague, Wolfram Schlenker, had agreed to take over for me in the spring, and co-host the Seminar with Jim. That’s one of two upgrades. (No, I’m not retiring, and I will be teaching my environmental economics and policy course as usual in the spring semester).
The other upgrade is that it will become the Harvard-MIT Joint Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy, meeting every week on Thursdays, 4:30-5:45 pm, but alternating locations between Harvard and MIT. The first seminar in the spring semester will be on Thursday, February 5th.
At the end of Wednesday’s seminar, after Anna’s presentation, I made my usual closing comment that the spring semester schedule will be sent out soon. But before I could stand up to leave, Jim Stock surprised me (and presumably others in the room) by standing up, moving to the front of the room, and expressing his thanks for my having founded and led the Seminar for the past 35 years (as well as making some broader, very generous comments about my contributions to environmental economics and policy at Harvard and beyond). Jim knows that I am resistant to being acknowledged publicly, let alone celebrated, so I’m not going to compound matters by repeating any of it here.
So, then, what’s the reason for this blog post today? It’s quite simple. When Jim spoke at the end of the seminar, he read a list of the authors and papers from the very first semester that I had co-hosted with Marty Weitzman in the fall of 1992, and it turned out that the list included to future Nobel laureates, Bill Nordhaus and Bob Solow (plus one who should have been – in my view – Marty himself).
I’ve inserted the schedule below for your reading pleasure. Topics in environmental economics at that time were clearly much broader today, when the profession is focused (albeit not exclusively) on climate change. For some of you, reviewing the schedule below will bring back memories, but I hope for everyone, it will be of interest.
