Intermediate Environmental & Resource Economics (Honors)

Catalog description

This Honors course focuses on intermediate principles of environmental and natural resource economics, with strong emphasis on policy analysis and applications. The central focus in any economics course is how best to allocate scarce resources and this holds true for this course as well. However, in this course the goods and services we will talk about differ from those in other economics courses in that there is typically no market in which to trade them - e.g., air and water quality or a scenic view. Thus, it may be the case that government policies are needed to maintain and enhance their quantity and/or quality. The course is structured around a number of broad thematic areas with individual book chapters, papers, class discussions, and assignments used to learn the material. The first two parts provide a review of micro and environmental economic theory, and an overview of how economists think about environmental issues. The third section focuses on benefit-cost analysis and valuation issues, and the fourth section looks at government intervention and policy. The final section(s) focus on specific topics in environmental and natural resource economics and related policy issues with the general goal being to provide students a better understanding of current issues related to the environment.