15780 - Environmental economics

Academic Year 2014/2015

  • Moduli: Luca Lambertini (Modulo 1) Silvia Gatti (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: In-person learning (entirely or partially) (Modulo 1); In-person learning (entirely or partially) (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Economics, Markets and Institutions (cod. 8038)

Learning outcomes

Economic growth and globalization go along with (or imply, some would say) undesirable consequences on the quality of the environment and the planet's residual stock of natural resources, be they renewables or not. the course aims at making students aware of (i) the environmental implications of advanced economic systems' activities; (ii) the negative consequences of unequal development, and (iii) possible sort- and long-run remedies in the form of public policies and investments in green technologies. At the end of the course, students will be in a position to critically assess the basic features of the current debate on the basis of the acquired wisdom in this field, being endowed with a toolkit with a practical and professional value.

Course contents

The structure of the course is the following:

1) The genesis and foundations of environmental economics
- cost-benefit analysis
- externalities and public goods
- sustainability

2) Pollution
- pollution as an externality of production
- the measurement problem
- Coase and Hotelling's theorems
- policy measures: Pigouvian taxation, environmental standards and pollution permits

3) Ethics and fairness: the welfare of future generations
- discounting
- environmental values

4) Natural resources
- exhaustible resources
- renewable resources and innovation incentives

5) The environment, natural resources and growth
- harmonizing development while safeguarding the environment
- uneven development and the environment

6) Market power, the environment and natural resources
- effects of monopoly power and oligopolistic interactions
-effects of international trade under imperfect competition

Readings/Bibliography

D.W. Pearce and R.K. Turner, Economia delle risorse naturali e dell'ambiente, Bologna, Il Mulino.

Additional materiale will be delivered during the course

Teaching methods

class lecturing

Assessment methods

Written examination or, alternatively, an essay (on a single part or both) on a subject to be agreed upon with the teacher

Teaching tools

Elementary methods of mathematical analysis.

Office hours

See the website of Luca Lambertini

See the website of Silvia Gatti