AEM 7510 - Environmental Economics

(CU-SBY)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: graduate-level microeconomic theory and econometrics.

T. Gerarden.

The objective of this course is to provide a graduate-level survey of the two prevailing contemporary themes in environmental economics: the measurement of the demand for environmental resources as input into benefit-cost analyses, and the design of incentive-based, cost-effective policy instruments to achieve environmental goals. Core topics include market failure, conceptual foundations for valuing changes in environmental quality, empirical applications of nonmarket valuation methods, and cost-effective market mechanism design for reducing pollution. Additional topics include information asymmetries and mechanism design for nonpoint source pollution, and international/global environmental issues.