Course Co-ordinator: Professor J Swierzbinski

Pre-requisite(s): EC 2003.

This course covers both environmental economics and the economics of natural resources.

One of the main topics in environmental economics is the regulation of externalities or spillovers where one firm?s or one individual's actions affect other people. The course addresses this topic focusing on pollution and climate change as key examples. A second major topic in environmental economics is the valuation of environmental amenities such as clean air or outdoor recreation. The course studies some of the major methods used by economists to assign a value to such resources.

One of the main topics of natural resource economics is the management of common property resources. The course studies this topic using fisheries as an important example. Investment is a key issue for the study of exhaustible resources, which necessarily involve tradeoffs over time. Fossil fuel which is extracted today is not available tomorrow. The course studies how economists model some of these investment issues, which has implications for such policy questions as the determinants of the long run price of oil and the sustainable use of natural resources.

1 two-hour lecture and 1 one-hour lecture per week and 8 one-hour tutorials over the duration of the course.

1st Attempt: 1 three-hour examination (80%); continuous assessment (20%) consisting of a graded written essay (maximum 2500 words).

Resit: 1 three-hour written examination (100%).