Fast Fashion quotes in Yale’s The Politic

A student reporter reached out to me for quotes about Fast Fashion. The article is now up:

Does the Devil Wear Fast Fashion?: Environmental Costs and Cultural Pushback

by Natalia Armas Perez

Ms. Armas Perez has written a current summary of the fast fashion landscape, including quotes from professors like me and industry executives.

Here’s one quote about me:

Joy Buchanan, an associate professor of Quantitative Analysis and Economics at Samford University, expanded on this idea: “Fast fashion is partly just a sign of a richer world. We can all have more of everything, including customized clothes.” In a world where clothing is cheaper than ever, the desire to reinvent oneself through fashion isn’t just encouraged—it’s expected. “Now that T-shirts are so cheap to make, it’s not surprising that people print them up for a single club event with little thought about the financial or environmental cost. Financially speaking, shirts are almost as disposable as plastic forks,” said Buchanan.

About the publication: The Politic is Yale’s undergraduate journal of politics and culture since 1947. The way people end up finding me to comment on this issue is my original piece for Cato from 2023.

Robert Solow on Sustainability

2023 continues to be a dangerous year for eminent economists. We have once again lost a Nobel laureate who was influential even by the standard of Nobelists, Robert Solow:

I’m sure you will soon see many tributes that discuss his namesake Solow Model (MR already has one), or discuss him as a person. I never got to meet him (just saw him give a talk) and the Solow Model is well known, so I thought I’d take this occasion to discuss one of his lesser-known papers- “Sustainability: An Economists Perspective“. What follows comes from my 2009 reaction to his paper:

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