Deregulation: Invitation to Disaster in the S&L Industry

This speech was given by Professor Case as part of the Annual Financial Institutions and Regulation Symposium at the Fordham School of Law

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Deregulation: Invitation to Disaster in the S&L Industry

This speech was given by Professor Case as part of the Annual Financial Institutions and Regulation Symposium at the Fordham School of Law

The Attraction of Home Ownership

George Sternlieb argues convincingly that rental housing is likely to remain in somewhat short supply in the immediate future with some loosening at a later date. All of this is premised on no significant change in current construction and market trends. On the other hand, a change in national housing policy and sharing equity advantages with tenants could produce significant increases in rental units. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

The Impact on Housing Costs of the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act-super-1

Evaluating the impact of California's Coastal Commissions' actions on housing costs provide challenges to economists and political scientists for which they lack both adequate theory and data to reach decisive conclusions. At best evaluation of eight years of Commissions' actions indicate that their actions have saved some scarce coastal resources most in need of protection. However, these achievements created some types of excessive costs and market dislocations which promise to affect adversely housing costs in major populous urban areas. Unfortunately the full range of public and private costs remains undefined and current judgments about Commissions' actions must remain tentative. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.