Natural Resource and Environmental Economics

Course description

The course is concerned on the relationship between environment and economic activities; the issue and role of property rights; optimal and sustainable utilization of non-renewable and renewable resources; and on the optimal pollution control issues. The issue of valuation of environmental goods and services and environmental impact assessment are also points intensively discussed in the course. Since every rational individual and the society as a whole is concerned on the balance between human activities and preservation of safe environment for the existing and future generations; the basic question is how to use those resources in an optimal and sustainable manner. The course aims at enabling the students with ample policy tools to meet the above agenda.

Course outcomes

Upon the completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyze the nexus between environment and development
• Equip with wide ranges of policies for sustainable development
• Examine causes and correcting mechanisms of market failures
• Evaluate different models about the optimal use of renewable resources such as forest and fisheries
• Analyze optimal depletion of non-renewable resources such as minerals and energy resources
• Acquire skill about the environmental policy instruments to control pollution
• Acquire an in-depth understanding of the different environmental goods and services valuation techniques
• Acquire skill to undertake rigorous Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

Course contents

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🔽 0 h 44 min | Introduction

Emergence of Natural Resource and Environmental Economics (NREC)
Classical, neoclassical and modern economic thoughts
Efficiency, optimality and sustainability
Fundamental issues needed to achieve efficiency, optimality and sustainability

🔽 1 h 39 min | The Concept of Sustainability Problem

Sustainability
The economy and the environment
Weak and strong sustainability
The drivers of environmental impact
The analysis of sustainability issues
The roles of policy and institutional conception, incentives and information in sustainability

🔽 1 h 22 min | Welfare Economics and the Environment

The concepts of efficiency and optimality in allocation
Realization of an efficient allocation
Market to produce efficient allocation
Market failure

🔽 2 h 06 min | Environmental Valuation

The categories of economic value assigned to the natural environment, and the distinction between use and non-use values
Valuation techniques
Travel cost method and Hedonic pricing to tourism and property valuation
Contingent valuation and choice experiment models work in valuing the non-use values of the environment

🔽 0 h 47 min | Economics of Pollution Control

Types of pollutants
The pollution taxonomy
Waste flows
Efficient allocation of fund and stock pollutants
Cost effective policies for efficient and optimum allocation of pollutions

🔽 0 h 43 min | Efficient and Optimal Use of Natural Resources

The role of time and interest in resource allocation
The role of elasticity of substitution and the innovative mechanisms available to enhance elasticity of substitution
Static and dynamic efficiency
The Hotelling’s rule in non-renewable resource allocation
Non-renewable allocation in competitive and monopoly markets

🔽 1 h 32 min | Allocation of Renewable Resources