Peter Arkle

As long as oil and gas are cheap, producers will have little incentive to switch to RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES, argues geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. In a policy paper written with economist Gernot Wagner, the authors contend that fossil-fuel prices are kept artificially low by subsidies. The paper, published in Nature in September, recommends a carbon tax or cap and giving renewables greater access to the energy grid.


Is it better to stay unemployed while waiting for the right job or to take a lesser interim position? A study by economics professor Henry Farber has found that STOPGAP JOBS might hurt future employment prospects. Farber — along with UCLA’s Till von Wachter and Arizona State’s Dan Silverman — sent out 8,000 fake résumés for 2,400 administrative job openings, and found that those with stopgap jobs were called by employers 8.5 percent of the time, while those with no job at all were called 10 percent of the time. The study was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in November.