Environmental Economics and Policies

Description

The focus of the course is on environmental policies. To enable students to gain a good understanding of environmental policies, the course will first lay out the basics of welfare economics and explain how the interplay between humans and their environment may affect social outcomes. It will then investigate the two main problems of environmental economics: how to determine the right pollution targets to set and how to achieve these targets. Special attention will be given to the choice of policy instruments depending on the environmental problem and its relation with other market failures (e.g. information asymmetries, market power). The end of the course will focus on the challenges related to the implementation of environmental policies, such as coordination problems in international environmental agreements, the role of lobbies, and public support. Objectives: By the end of the course, the students must be able to: describe the concept and relevance of pollution targets and how to determine them; describe the pros and cons of alternative policy instruments, taking into account the nature of the environmental problem and the economic setting; form policy recommendations about how to handle a given environmental problem.