Environmental and Resource Economics

• Discuss how we can conceptualize an optimal use of environmental goods and services
• Understand environmental policy instruments
• Conduct economic analysis to find optimum non-renewable resource allocation over generations
• Explain and debate how environmental valuation methods work
• Understand and qualify the role of discount rate in conducting cost-benefit analysis of environmental policies
• Understand the economics of pollution
• Understand and assess economics of climate change
• Understand and discuss the differences in private and social costs of wind energy
• Understand and discuss the links between population growth, food production and the environment
• Use economic analysis and estimate optimum renewable resource management
• Understand and relate to economics of water use and water quality

1: Introduction: Overview of economics, sources of market failures, externalities
2: Tragedy of the commons, public goods, property rights
3: Environmental policy instruments, payments for environmental services, precautionary principle
4: Economics of pollution
5: Cost-benefit analysis, discounting, total economic value, valuing non-market goods
6: Green national accounts, green GDP, genuine progress indicator, human development index, why different measures give different outcomes
7: Causes and consequences of climate change, economics of climate change, adaptation and mitigation policy options, environment and equity
8: Green economy, economy and environment, industrial ecology, global food supply, agriculture and environment
9: The market for carbon capture and storage (CCS) from a consumer perspective
10: Non-renewable resources, scarcity and abundance: Economics, supply and consumption of non-renewable resources, mining and environment
11: Economics of renewable resources: Environment, economy and renewable resources, ecological and economic analysis of fisheries
12: Water supply and demand for water, water pricing, alternative uses of water, water quality, recreational water values

Good knowledge of quantitative analysis from courses like “02323 Introduction to Statistics” or “02418 Statistical modelling: Theory and practice”

Lectures 1½- 2 hours + 2 hours exercises per week