Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

This course provides an introduction into the principles of environmental economics, with a focus on policy applications. The principal problem in any economics course is how to best allocate scarce resources. This holds true for environmental economics as well. However, environmental resources differ from other goods that economists study in that there is usually no market for them. Thus, government policies are needed to maintain and improve environmental quality. Similar considerations will be made for natural resources, both exhaustible and renewable, where policies are needed to determine the optimal rate of exploitation.

At the end of the course students will able to analyze an environmental problem from an economic perspective using the economist's toolbox. Students will be able to identify the environmental problem and its economic consequences and to suggest the policy measures to deal with it. In addition, students will be able to tackle economic problems involving pricing and extraction of natural resources, with special reference to oil.
Students will be able to autonomously analyze economic problems involving environment and natural resources in a rigorous way, explain the main concepts of environmental and natural resource economics, autonomously develop further knowledge related to environmental and natural resource economics, communicate economic analyses on natural resources and the environment.