I Never Introduced Myself ...

A little biography, a little blogging retrospective

When I started this Substack 2.5 years ago, I dove right in because I had a lot of pent-up writing I wanted to do, and because talking about myself seemed (and still seems) self-indulgent. But I never introduced myself properly, so some of you may be wondering “who is this person and why is she writing so much about economics and electricity?” Please indulge me now and let me tell you a bit about who I am, why I write about economics, electricity, regulation, and political economy here, and how this Substack is an outgrowth of the Knowledge Problem blog I had starting in 2002.

I’m an economist, the identity and the ideas that matter most to me. As Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics at Northwestern University, I organize an annual workshop for state public utility regulators on the foundations of economics, law, and technology that give them conceptual tools to make sound regulatory decisions in the face of technological change, and we create a knowledge-based community that regulators can use as a resource when grappling with tough issues. I’m also on the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Fellow at the Abundance Institute. Lots of hats to wear!

I came into economics through graduate training grounded in industrial organization, economic history, and mechanism design, although my love of economics really started in high school, thanks to my father. My high school economics class was basically watching the then-recently-released Milton & Rose Friedman Free To Choose PBS videos! I didn't go to college as an economics major, but I landed there pretty quickly, and I was hooked pretty hard by the combination of analytical and logical frameworks and tools with analyzing firms and markets, which are fascinating. I've always been one of those economists more interested in understanding incentives and decisions and only secondarily interested in data analysis. Interestingly in retrospect, my first electricity work was in my senior honors thesis, so I was exposed to the economics of regulation, the theory of second best, Ramsey pricing, and two-part tariffs early on.

Graduate school deepened that fascination. I learned the theoretical foundations of the principles that had captivated me as an undergraduate and specialized in economic history, which sharpened my interest in institutions and change over time. Ronald Coase’s pioneering work on transaction costs showed how the costs of information and coordination shape markets and institutions, launching a research agenda that influenced both institutional economics and economic history. His ideas profoundly shaped my own perspective.

Alongside coursework, I read widely—Hayek on knowledge, Herbert Simon on bounded rationality, Vernon Smith on experimental economics, complexity theory, political theory, philosophy. The interplay between this formal training and extracurricular exploration led me to see markets and network industries—especially electricity—as ecosystems shaped by knowledge, constraints, and human judgment.

Electricity is endlessly fascinating as an economics lab because it is the single most important infrastructure of modern life, and it continues to invite us to ask the most profound economic questions. When I study regulatory change or emerging digital power systems, I’m really asking, How do we coordinate across the diverse actions and plans of people? How can we enable the emergence of and/or build better systems that balance efficiency, innovation, and choice?

Economic history is essential here. Understanding the evolution of electricity systems—their technologies, institutions, and regulatory structures—requires a historical lens. Power systems did not emerge in a vacuum; they are the product of path-dependent choices, political bargains, and technological constraints that stretch back over a century. Studying this history illuminates why engineered power systems and our institutions look the way they do, how innovations are reshaping the grid, and why today’s reform efforts so often confront inertia. Economic history provides the perspective we need to connect technological change with institutional adaptation—or its absence.

My love of economics includes the history of economic thought, a subject I taught for more than 20 years at William & Mary, Northwestern, and Purdue. Grappling with the giants of our discipline—Smith, Marshall, Schumpeter, Hayek (to list some of my favorites)—sharpens our logic and deepens our understanding. Adam Smith holds a special place for me. His Theory of Moral Sentiments is the underappreciated moral-psychological core of his economics. From empathy, duty, and sympathy to character and social harmony, Smith shows that markets are embedded in moral life, that decisions emerge in social contexts. His insight reminds us that systems of emergent order—markets, grids, institutions—are always grounded in human judgment.

When I launched Knowledge Problem as a blog in 2002, the economics blogosphere was almost nonexistent. Blogs were experimental spaces, often personal diaries or link lists. Few were intellectual forums. Academic economists largely ignored the medium; serious debate remained locked away in journals and conferences. Into that gap came Knowledge Problem, one of the earliest blogs to explore markets, regulation, and technological change.

For eighteen years, until 2020, the blog offered real-time reflection on electricity and energy markets, institutional evolution, and the economics of everyday life. Later, Michael Giberson joined, adding his clear, pragmatic voice to complement my own. Our goal was to make economics both rigorous and accessible, to show how economic reasoning could illuminate complex questions without oversimplifying them.

In the early years, posts were concise explainers of restructuring, network industries, wholesale power markets, and pricing. Regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and regulatory restructuring were new and confusing. Readers wanted to know: why did electricity prices spike? What caused reliability failures? Why did California have blackouts in 2001? What role did Enron play in wholesale price spikes and in the blackouts? Addressing questions like this built the blog’s reputation as a trusted explainer at a time when policymakers and the public were scrambling for clarity.

The blog also became a space to test institutional ideas. Drawing on Elinor Ostrom, I argued that electricity markets are polycentric systems, not reducible to one regulator or model. A good example was the 2004 post Network Reliability As A Public Good, And What To Do About It, where I argued that reliability is not purely a public good, but is partly private, and that markets with differentiated preferences can provide it effectively. That post had legs; I expanded it into a chapter in my 2009 book, and Mike and I co-authored an article on it with French economist Evens Salies, L'électricité est-elle un bien public? This question also factors into a forthcoming article I have; more on that when it's accepted for publication.

in 2009, I published a five‑part series that still makes me proud—long before “smart grid” became a household term. In Part 1, I laid the groundwork by defining smart grid not just as engineering fancier wires but as a new economic investment category distinct from traditional transmission. In Part 2, I argued that a smart grid must be transactive—a rich, transactional environment where digital communication enables producers and consumers to negotiate and exchange value in real time. Part 3 brought that vision home: I showed how intelligent end‑use devices—from thermostats to water heaters—can respond autonomously to dynamic price signals, giving consumers toolkits to manage electricity use and expenditure with nuance and agency. In Part 4, the focus shifted to renewables: I explained how smart grid investments help integrate intermittent, distributed generation by managing voltage, frequency, and interconnection challenges at the distribution level—without conflating that with costly long‑distance transmission projects. Finally, in Part 5, I turned to policy: I emphasized that smart meters alone won’t deliver value unless paired with dynamic pricing and retail competition, so that consumers and retailers alike can realize the full potential of a transactive network.

Throughout this period, the intellectual anchors remained constant: Hayek on dispersed knowledge, Ostrom on institutional diversity, and Virginia Postrel on dynamism.

As blogging matured, Knowledge Problem became a consistent voice on electricity issues like wholesale reform, retail choice, demand response, and transmission governance. Many of these debates—about capacity markets, incentives, and consumer participation—remain live today.

By 2020, the medium had shifted. Blogs gave way to social media, podcasts, and newsletters as the primary venues for public commentary. Knowledge Problem wound down gradually, leaving its archive as a record of nearly two decades of analysis.

Here on Substack, I aim to continue weaving those threads together—technical economics, regulatory realism, and moral imagination. I write aspiring to be an idea translator immersed in both the thought and the practice: the “why” behind the wires and the words.

Thank you for joining me here.