Economics Professor Discusses Texas Energy Crisis with Tucson NBC Affiliate

Eller College of Management Assistant Professor of Economics Ashley Langer was interviewed in a February 22 news clip from the Tucson NBC affiliate station, KVOA, discussing the recent Texas power outages and how they may affect Arizona.

In the news clip, Langer explains why there is no need for Arizonans to worry whether or not the current energy crisis in Texas will affect Arizona, as Arizona’s energy and power supplies are regulated and connected to various other states.

"If the weather gets cold here in Arizona, we would not expect to see these massively high bills and blackouts Texas had," explains Langer. “These very cold temperatures can be very important even in warm climates. So, we should potentially be thinking about how resilient our natural gas line, our fuel supplies and even our generators themselves in actually the colder temperatures and not just the warm ones that we normally think about."

Ashley Langer joined the Eller College of Management in 2013. Previously, she taught at the University of Michigan, which she joined after earning her PhD in Economics from the University of California-Berkeley. Her current research focuses on how consumers make decisions that affect the environment. She is also working on the effect of consumer demographics and demographic group preferences on vehicle pricing and has previously worked on the effect of congestion tolling on urban land use.