N. Resource & Environmental Economics

Course Syllabus | Schedule | Text

Topics:

    1. Relationship Between the Human Economy and the Environment
      • Systems and subsystems: species, subspecies, laws of thermodynamics
      • Production, consumption, and recycling
      • Low entropy matter and energy: resource inputs
      • High entropy matter and energy: pollution
      • Ethical Foundations, Goals, and Default Positions within Natural Resource and Environmental Economics
      • Limits-to-growth debate
    2. Criteria for Evaluating Environmental Policies
      • Cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness (second equimarginal principle)
      • Efficiency standard (first equimarginal principle, static vs dynamic efficiency, Pareto efficiency, Kaldor-Hicks efficiency)
      • Safety standard
      • Sustainability standard
    3. Environmental Valuation: Conceptual Models and Methods
      • Types of Non-market Benefits: Use, Option, and Existence Value
      • Neoclassical valuation theory: consumer surplus, WTP/WTA, compensating/equivalent variation
      • Non-market valuation methods: contingent valuation, travel cost, hedonic regression
      • Applications of contingent valuation, subjective well-being, and benefit transfer approach.
    4. Policy Instruments for Domestic Pollution Control
      • Neoclassical theory of pollution control
      • Command-and-control approaches vs incentive-based mechanisms
      • Stationary vs mobile sources
      • Air vs water pollution
      • Urban environmental quality
      • Case study addressing pollution problems in Thailand
        • Sources: burning fossil fuels in transportation sector, outdoor burning from forest and agriculture, industrial sector, urban planning
        • Solutions to address each source
        • Role of fiscal budget, law, and institutions
    5. Climate Change: Global Agreements and Domestic Policy
      • Climate trend and GHG emissions
      • Impact of climate change on Thai economy
      • Mitigation and adaptation strategies
        • National strategies
        • Development gaps: examples from the agricultural sector
    6. Natural Resources and Ecosystem Services  and Extraction/Use Externalities
      • Non-renewable: fossil fuels
      • Renewable: forests
      • Replenishable: water
      • Land use
    7. Energy and Sustainability
      • Laws of thermodynamics
      • Fossil fuel and nuclear energy
      • Transition to alternatives: solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen
      • Urban resources use and sustainability
    8. Political-Economic Systems, Environmental Justice, and Related Social Issues
      • Growth imperative, net benefits of growth, distribution of cost-benefits of growth.
      • Social ecology
      • Social-ecological transition: consumption, investment, and policies
    9. Poverty, Population Growth, and the Environment and Environmental Policy in Poor Countries

Readings:

    • Arrow, K. J., Cropper, M. L., Eads, G. C., Hahn, R. W., Lave, L. B., Noll, R. G., … & Stavins, R. N. (1996). Is there a role for benefit-cost analysis in environmental, health, and safety regulation? Science, 272(5259), 221-222.
    • Attavanich, W., Sirbuaiam, K., Sirimongkonlertkun, N., Kajitvichyanukul, P., Saetang, P., Nasanit, R., Limsawart, W., and Pongpiachan, S., 2020. Clean Air Blue Paper: Insights on the Impact of Air Pollution and its Root Causes. 1st Edition. Thailand Clean Air Network. ISBN: 978-616-393-295-2.
    • Boulding, K. E. (1973). The economics of the coming spaceship earth. In H.E. Daly (Ed.), Toward a steady-state economy, 121-132. San Francisco: W.H.Freeman.
    • Chernomas, R., & Hudson, I. (2016). The profit doctrine: economists of the neoliberal era. Pluto Press.
    • Coase, R. (1960) The problem of social cost. The Journal of Law and Economics. 3(1), 1-44.
    • Cropper, M. L. (2000). Has economic research answered the needs of environmental policy? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 39(3), 328-350.
    • Daly, H. E. (1973). The steady-state economy: Toward a political economy of biophysical equilibrium and moral growth. In H.E. Daly (Ed.), Toward a steady-state economy, 149-174. San Francisco: W.H.Freeman.
    • Daly, H. E. (1987). The economic growth debate: What some economists have learned but many have not. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 14(4), 323-336.
    • Diamond, P. A., & Hausman, J. A. (1994). Contingent valuation: Is some number better than no number? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(4), 45-64.
    • Ehrlich, P. R., & Holdren, J. P. (1971). Impact of population growth. Science, 171(3977), 1212-1217.
    • Fullerton, D.&  Stavins, R. (1998). How economists see the environment. Nature 395 (1998): 433–434.
    • Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1973). The entropy law and the economic problem. In H.E. Daly (Ed.), Toward a steady-state economy, 37-49. San Francisco: W.H.Freeman.
    • Goulder, L.H. and Parry, I.W.H. (2008). Instrument choice in environmental policy. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2(2), 152-174.
    • Goulder, L. H., & Stavins, R. N. (2002). Discounting: An eye on the future. Nature, 419(6908), 673-674.
    • Hahn, R. W. (2000). The impact of economics on environmental policy. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 39(3), 375-399.
    • Hanemann, W. M. (1994). Valuing the environment through contingent valuation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(4), 19-43.
    • Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243-1248.
    • Hartman, R. (1976). The harvesting decision when a standing forest has value. Economic Inquiry, 14(1), 52-58.
    • Kelman, S. (1981). Cost-benefit analysis: An ethical critique. Regulation, 5, 33.
    • Krutilla, J. V. (1967). Conservation reconsidered. The American Economic Review, 57(4), 777-786.
    • Metcalf, G. E. (2009). Market-based policy options to control US greenhouse gas emissions. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23(2), 5-27.
    • Nordhaus, W. D. (2007). A review of the Stern review on the economics of climate change. Journal of Economic Literature, 45(3), 686-702.
    • Nordhaus, W. (2007). Critical assumptions in the Stern review on climate change. Science. 317, 201-202.
    • Olmstead, S. M. (2010). The economics of managing scarce water resources. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 4(2), 179-198.
    • Ostrom, E. (2009). A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science, 325(5939), 419-422.
    • Pasurka, C. (2008). Perspectives on pollution abatement and competitiveness: Theory, data, and analyses. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2(2), 194-218.
    • Pindyck, R. S. (2007). Uncertainty in environmental economics. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1(1) 45-65.
    • Portney, P. R. (1994). The contingent valuation debate: Why economists should care. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(4), 3-17.
    • Portney, P. R. (2008). The (not so) new corporate social responsibility: An empirical perspective.  Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2(2), 261-275.
    • Rees, W. E. (2002). An ecological economics perspective on sustainability and prospects for ending poverty. Population and Environment, 24(1), 15-46.
    • Stavins, R. N. (1998). What can we learn from the grand policy experiment? Lessons from SO2 allowance trading. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(3), 69-88.
    • Stavins, R. N. (2011). The problem of the commons: Still unsettled after 100 years. The American Economic Review, 101(1), 81-108.
    • Stern, N., & Taylor, C. (2007). Climate change: Risk, ethics, and the Stern review. Science, 317(5835), 203-204.
    • Stern N (2021) A time for action on climate change and a time for change in economics. Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy Working Paper 397/Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper 370. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.

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