Environmental Economics

Lecturer: Jankó Ferenc

Course type: lecture and seminar

Objective of the course:

Overview of environmental issues and discourses, environmental ideas and particularly of theories in environmental economics: the Pigovian and Coasean tradition. To analyse the link between economic behaviour, growth and environmental degradation, the utilization path of environmental resources and ecosystem services. The possibilities of environmental policy and a sustainable economic transformation will be considered.

Assessment:

Assessment and grading based on individual, oral presentations. Topic: an environmental conflict in my country using the course material as an approach

Feedback for the teacher:

Written exam to reflect the main topics – what you have learned during the class

Schedule:

Topic 1. Environmental problems as social and economic issues. Environmental discourses

Topic 2. Global environmental problems

Topic 3. Subject and basic concepts of environmental economics

Topic 4. Economic understanding of sustainability. The possibilities of a sustainable transformation

Topic 5. Environmental indicators in economics.

Topic 6. Economics of natural resources. The tragedy of the commons. Economic evaluation of nature and the environment

Topic 7. The relationship between economic development and environmental degradation. Karl Polanyi and The Great Transformation

Topic 8. The traditions of welfare economics and market failures. Environmental externalities and the problem of public goods. The economics of environmental pollution. The Pigovian Tax

Topic 9. The Coase Theorem and transaction costs

Topic 10. Tools of environmental policy for externalities. Permissions, contracts, compensations, direct rules, emissions trading schemes, economic incentives (taxes, norms, funding)

Topic 11. Energy and climate policy 

Learning materials:

Common, M., Stagl, S. 2005: Ecological Economics. An Introduction. Cambridge University Press

Endres, A. 2011: Environmental Economics. Theory and Policy. Cambridge University Press

Spash, C.L. 2005: Greenhouse economics: Value and Ethics. Routledge, London-New York

Dryzek, J. 2004: The Politics of the Earth. Environmental Discourses. Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York

Perman, R., Ma, Y., McGilvray, J., Common, M. 2003: Natural Resource and Environmental Economics. Third Edition, Pearson Education Limited

Tietenberg, T., Lewis, L. 2012: Environmental & Natural Resource Economics 9th Edition, Pearson Education Limited