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

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 figurethe 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 Economy1700 to 2010 ()," which attempts to fill in this crucial gap in our economic data. We talk about how Nicholas went about finding 300yearold 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.

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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.

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