The course provides a theoretical framework to analyze the process of decision-making in the environmental sector and the use of policy instruments in relation to specific cases of environmental resource management and economic activities that produce serious impacts on the environment
Knowledge and understanding. Students should acquire knowledge and capacity of understanding of: the relationship between environmental protection, economic efficiency and market failure; the sustainability criterion as the capacity of synthetizing economic growth while preserving the ecological basis of economic development
Applying knowledge and understanding. Students should be able to critically evaluate the role of environmental and public policy intervention in orienting and regulating markets and the operators to the goal of sustainability
Making judgments. At the end of the Course, students must be able to apply the acquired knowledge in order to formulate an independent judgment and a critical thinking on environmental policy choices. They will be able of analyzing the main economic effects of alternative hypotheses of public and private choice on the environment, from the point of view of the efficiency-equity trade-off
Communication skills Students will acquire the technical terminology to relate to both specialists and non-specialists, companies and institutions as decision making agents that are related to the environmental and economic variables
Learning skills. Students will acquire appropriate skills to improve the studying of specific topics of the discipline. The course will offer students different methodologies for assessing environmental costs and benefits, characterized by a rigorous formal setting.
Recommended prerequisites are the knowledge of: the basic principles of Microeconomics, the competition system (supply and demand functions); income and substitution effects
Attendance is recommended. The teaching will include lessons, seminars, classroom discussions and homework.
Topics included:
The Environmental Economics • Scarcity, resource allocation and optimization • Non-renewable resources: intertemporal models for optimal use • Renewable resources policies • Sustainable development and growth patterns Efficiency and control of environmental problems • Environmental externalities and pollution • economic and fiscal policies for environmental control Economic analysis of collective choices and collective decision-making processes • Economic evaluation techniques for environmental/social costs and benefits • Intergenerational equity • Environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment and multi-criteria techniques • Non market techniques and deliberative democracy aimed at deriving operational criterion for environmental sustainability
Methodological approaches:
• Hedonic prices • Contingent Valuation • Choice experiment
The textbook and other additional supports (slides, homework texts, ...) will be posted on Aulaweb
Ricevimento: Office hours on Tuesday from 14.30. Please check any variation at the following address: http://www.economia.unige.it/index.php/il-dipartimento/personale/docenti-ad-economia/90-barbara-cavalletti
BARBARA CAVALLETTI (President)
DANIELA MINETTI
MARCELLO MONTEFIORI
I sem.
19 sept. 2016 - 15 dec. 2016
ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
Alternatively written/oral examination in English
