Meeting with Advisor (4/7). Hybrid SDA

I met my advisor, Dr. John Gowdy today:

1. Question and Answer
I asked about the advantages of hybrid approach of Input-Output Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA). There are 4 advantages of it. Most of all, the hybrid approach is better in keeping original information of input-output table than generalized input-output SDA. Here are the advantages explained by Casler and Rose (1998):

1. It abides by the energy (or pollution) conservation law: There are primary energy and secondary energy whcih is a product of primary energy. When we calculate total energy use, the amount of primary enrgy and the amount of secondary energy plus primary energy used for other production must be equal. Hybrid approach can ensure that the I-O table conserves this law. But other approaches could lose this feature, and over- or under- calculate total amount of energy (Miller and Blair, 1985).
2. It accurately measures changes in energy use (or pollution emissions) that arise. Because this approach shows energy use for each sector.
3. It makes it possible to still use the augmented Leontief inverse.
4. It makes it easy to incoporate with ecological-economic models.

2. Plan of Dissertation
I agreed to write three essays about Economic growth, energy and green house emissions in Korea. First one will be a descriptive essay about economic growth and energy-pollution policy in Korea. I will present general discussion about related issues and evidence.

Second and third ones will be structural decomposition analysis about energy use and green house gas emissions in Korea. They will be more analytical and technical papers.

3. Next Goals

• Understanding SDA method. Read two books that I borrowed.
• Korean data collecting. Money term I-O table at hand. I need energy and green house gas emission data.
• Searching for physical data estimating method. Look up Cleveland's artical about energy IOA.

4. House Keeping

• I borrowed two books:
  Miller and Blair. 1985. Input-output analysis: foundations and extensions.
  Miernyk. 1965. The elements of input-output analysis

Reference

Casler. S.D. and P.D. Blair. 1997. Economic structure, fuel combustion, and pollution emissions.

Casler. S.D. and A. Rose. 1998. Carbon Dioxide emissions in the U.S. economy

Miller and Blair. 1985. Input-output analysis: foundations and extensions.

Prep list for fishing trip

(1) What to wear?
Clothing is very important because fishing is an outdoor activity. When weather changes, there is always danger of hypothermia or injury. Dressing properly can ensure the joy of fishing. Winter requires extra clothings. Here, I assume a trip during Summer, Spring and Fall time.

• Hat: You always need a hat to make shade and also keep your body temperature. If it is a extremely warm Summer day, you can wear a sun visor.
  
• Cargo pants: It provides extra storage. Except humid Summer day, I do not recommend shorts. Because long pants protects skin from sun and unexpected cuts from fishing tackle. Personally, I do not prefer jean because jean is poor at insulation. And when it gets wet, it does not dry fast.
  
• Long sleeve shirts: Although you wear short sleeve shirts, you need to wear or bring long sleeve shirts.
• Shoes: In many cases, snickers are fine. If you are going to wade, you may need water shoes (sandal) or boots.
  
• Jacket: There are many brand name jackets available on the market. Breathable sports jacket (ex. Gore-tex) is always fine for fishing.
  
• Rain jacket: You have to keep one in your bag. In many cases of shower and drizzling, breathable jacket works as a rain gear. But during Summer, fisherman has to fight heavy shower, and 100% water proof rain jacket is necessary.
• Wool sweater: Wool is a great material for sports wear. It keeps body temperature when it gets wet. Because fisherman stays near by water, he/she has more chance to get wet. Wool sweater is a perfect extra clothe which you want to keep in your bag.
• Gloves: Fingerless gloves are convenient to handle fish and bait. I heard that wool gloves are good, but have not tested them yet.
  

(2) Fishing tackle?

• Fishing rod and reel: I usually bring two sets with me and rig one rod for bottom lure, and the other for mid or top water lures.
• Tackle box: including hooks, floats, line, sinker, swivel, lures (top, mid, bottom lures), clipper and so on
• Multi tool: It is very useful when you cut your line and remove hooks from fish. I used use Swiss Army knife. Now I use Leather man multi tool because it has long nose pliers.
• Can of bait: Worm, minnow, crayfish, paste bait and so on. Whatever you want.

(3) Record keeping?

• Camera: If you are a catch-n-release fisherman, you at least want to take a picture of your trophy. You may not want to bring your expensive camera unless you have a personal property insurance. I saw that there is a disposable digital camera, which looks good for boat fisherman.
• Ruler or scale: Many waters have size limits which you have to pay attention.
  
• Thermometer: I check water temperature. Temp information is useful to measure degree of fish activity.

(4) Food?

• Water: When it is windy, your body loses more water than under calm weather.
  
• Snack: energy bar, jerky and so on. Fruit is always first choice of mine. Fruit helps our body quickly regain energy. It is more effective than any other processed food.
• Beer: Not a good one. But can you imagine fishing without drinking beer?

(5) Last but not least!

• Sun glasses: Polarized sun glasses make difference: you can easily see through water. But any kind of sun glasses is better than nothing. I prefer gray or amber color under day light, and yellow during dawn and twilight.
  
• Flash light: Always keep one in your bag. When you go out for night fishing, you definitely need a head lantern.
  
• First aid kit: Most injuries in fishing is related cut or punctuation by sharp tackles. At least, you need clean gaze and band aid.
• Sun block and lip balm: Protecting your skin from strong sun beam is very important. Sun burn really hurts.
• Insect repellent: Unfortunately fish are biting most, when mosquito are biting most.
  
• Plastic bags: You need couple of bags for many purposes, such as wrapping your catch and collecting your garbage.
  
• Small towel: Whenever you hook bait or dehook your catch, you may want to wash your hands. It means you have put your hands into water. You can dry your hands by wind, but it can hurt under windy weather. Dry your hands with towel.
• Tissue: Emergency situation.
• Contour map and Regulation booklet
  

This list is the basic of basics to prepare for fishing trip. You may need more. Remember, always more prepared is better than less prepared. BUT, lighter bag is better than heavier one. Difficult decision to make.

Meeting with a very old economist

I met with a very old ecnomist. Indeed, he is not that old, but he is a loyal subject of old economic thoughts. I met him because of the debate on real oil price. Without any doubt, he argues that real price of oil will be decreasing. When I send email for comment, he sent me a brief one sentence comment, "A higher price eventually induces a greater supply, and the effect is larger in the long run than the short." Oh, well, market will solve every problem? You wish!

We have been seeing long battle to let people understand that climate change is real. Even a few years ago, few lay persons accepted the fact or science. Now, if you say that global warming is fake, people think you are ignorant or crazy. I can see the same attitude in peak oil discussion. They don't buy science, but they just believe what they want to believe. How pity it is! Fact is fact, and science matters. After 5 or 10 years, I hope to meet the old economist again to check who was right if he is still alive.

Another thought. What do you think about universal health care? It is a big issue in this presidential election. Surely, I support the plan. It is such a shame that the US does not have one for its people; Korea has one, and we appreciate this pretty much. Even Rumania has one; myRumanian friend told me that he had to go back to his country to treat his dental illness because our student health plan does not cover much, while his universal health plan covers more. The old economist mentioned that he is against universal health care during today meeting. Many "economists" may think that the plan is bad because of efficiency issues. Beautiful efficiency! What a convenient decision rule for the people who live in an imaginary equilibrium world.

I don't deny that I am one of normative scientists different from natural scientists. But my norm, as an ecological economist, is on earth: make this world sustainable and happier. That is my normative decision rule. Is it true that when we increase efficiency, more of us can be better off? Efficiency does not make people happier. Look at the poor average life expectancy in the US without a universal health care. It is a shame. Shame on you, very old economist!

[Real price of oil] My question

Still many economists and business forecasters may want to believe that current hike of oil price was caused by temporary distortion of market, and high price will increase oil production, then eventually oil price will be stabilized. However, oil production seems to peak and gradually decrease in the near future. Although there are some counterarguments on this, but let's stick on the peak oil scenario.

My question is whether real price of oil will increase or decrease when oil production decreases. In other words, whether will increasing rate of oil price still be lower than inflation rate of other commodities (Apparently, inflation rate (CPI) does not explain energy price)? Nominal price of oil will easily increase along with production decrease. It will cause supply-pulled inflation, too. We can consider two different cases about inflation and oil price.

1. Inflation rate will be greater than increasing rate of oil price. Then we can say that real price of oil will decrease. Although nominal price of oil increase, price of other commodities go up higher. Then we may feel that oil is relatively cheaper. Oil and other energy sources are basic inputs into production. When oil price increases, it may cause cascade of value addition. For example, 5% increase of oil price will signal timber producers to increase its product price by 8%. Then, it will signal furniture producers to increase it's product price by 10%. When market participants expect such basic input price to increase, they may over-react by charging more than actual increase of inputs. In conclusion, higher inflation will disguise "real" price of oil.
   
   
2. Increasing rate of oil price is greater than inflation rate. Then real price of oil will increase. In this case, the market reacts to higher oil price and reduces oil use in its production. Technological progress may explain this situation.
   

Both cases seem plausible. They can happen at the same time also. Question is which factor is more influential.

-Sung.

Debate on real price of oil in the future

While interviewing our department's chair candidate, there was a brief debate on the real price of oil in the future between two faculty members. They gave two different forecast about the change of real oil price. One professor forecasted that real price of oil will increase, while the other forecasted the opposite. This is very important issue in my field. I suggested a discussion to other students, and will post the discussion here.

-Sung.

FYI

• Real price: Inflation adjusted price.
  "Money price is the price quoted in money while relative or real price is the exchange ratio between real goods regardless of money (from Wikipedia.org)."
  
• CPI: Consumer Price Index. Government officially calculate it from some commodities, which do not include food and energy. In general, it is used as inflation rate.

Fishing rod selection

There are so many different fishing rods in market. When I went to buy my first fishing tackles, I asked a clerk for recommendation. For general everyday fishing, he recommended me Medium power, 6'6" rod. I can see almost every angler use this type of rod at shore.

I have had no problem in using the 6'6" rod until I started using 6" swim bait. My rod was too weak to handle the lure properly. It made me think about rod selection. Here is my thought about lure selection:

1. Weight of lure: It is the first consideration. If you want to use heavy lures, you have to choose a heavier power rod. With light rod, you can not make right presentation of your lure.
2. Weight of target fish: It determines power and length of a rod, too. If you are targeting large fish, you need heavier power and longer rod. The rod will make fighting a lot easier. But reel is more important in fighting. It means that although you have a light rod, if you have a heavy reel, then you can land the fish without any serious problem. It will take more time in fighting, though.
   
3. Casting method and location: It determines length of a rod. If you want flipping or pitching most time, you should choose a longer one. If you will fish at beach, you definitely need longer one, too. But casting seems not so important consideration in rod selection.

Lure Classification

There are so many different types of fishing lures. We definitely need classify them to better understand when and where we use one. I found that classification by play depth is the most useful way. There are 3 types of lures according to play depth: top, middle and bottom water baits.

1. Top water

• Floating hard bait: They look typical hard plastic baits, but they remain floated when they are retrieved. Chug bug, Jitter bug, Stik bait are brand names of this kind of lure. They are usually called topwater lure.
  
• Buzz bait: They look like spinner baits, but they have props which make them float.
  
• Frog bait: They look like frog, and do not snag on grassed water.
  

2. Middle water

• Diving hard bait: They are the most typical hard plastic baits. They have lips, and they make the bait dive. Larger the lips, deeper they dive.
  
• Swim bait: They are soft plastic lure with paddle at the end. The paddle makes it swim in the middle of water.
  
• Spinner: They are made of wire and wings. Being retrieved fast, spinning wings imitate swimming bait fish.
  
• Spoon: They are spoon-shaped baits.
  

3. Bottom water

• Soft Plastic: There are many different shape of soft plastic baits, such as worm, bait fish, cray fish, and salamander. They are used with jig head or Carolina rig or no sinker rig. They are many variations of rigging.
  
• Jig: Jig is a combination of jig head and many kinds of skirts. For example, bucktail jig is a jighead with bucktail skirt.
  

I found this classification useful. Because it gives us idea which lure we have to use at different situation. Classification like soft plastic, hard plastic, non plastic does not help at all.