What 300 Years of Firewood Prices Say About the Economy | Odd Lots

发布时间 2025-07-25 15:42:05    来源

摘要

Today, the cost of energy — things like electricity, or gas, or heating oil — is considered an essential piece of economic data. But it turns out that for much of America's history, we've been overlooking a crucial economic figure: the cost of firewood. For decades, firewood was the dominant energy source powering the US economy. And yet there aren't really any official statistics about firewood prices. After all, how would you even go about putting a price tag on something that's growing in a lot of people's backyards? On this episode, we speak with Nicholas Muller, a Carnegie Mellon University economist and author of the new paper, "Firewood in the American Economy: 1700 to 2010 (https://www.nber.org/papers/w33974?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20250703&utm_term=10226339&utm_campaign=money&utm_id=31707500&orgid=78&uniquet=Kcqi90nlucYUCFcduNP2UA&utm_att1=)," which attempts to fill in this crucial gap in our economic data. We talk about how Nicholas went about finding 300-year-old firewood prices, and what the new data series can tell us about the development of the US economy and the relationship between growth and energy. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots (https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast) See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird patterns, the complex issues and the newest market crazes. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday for interviews with the most interesting minds in finance, economics and markets. Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcasts: https://bit.ly/BloombergPodcasts Check out more Odd Lots: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0MuA6M0zkZyy-99-qc87wKV Get the Odd Lots newsletter via https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/oddlots And for all things Odd Lots, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/oddlots Visit our other YouTube channels: Bloomberg Television: https://www.youtube.com/@markets Bloomberg Originals: https://www.youtube.com/bloomberg Quicktake: https://www.youtube.com/@BloombergQuicktake #Bloomberg #Podcast #OddLots Visit us: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts Follow Bloomberg Podcasts on Twitter: https://twitter.com/podcasts For coverage on news, markets and more: http://www.bloomberg.com/video

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