Schedule

Weekly Schedule

Our seminar meets every Monday from 7:30 to 10:25 in the Robert A. Jones House. All assignments are listed here on our weekly schedule.

Week	Date	Topic	Assignment and handouts
I. Introduction to environmental economics
1	11-Sep	Introduction to the course	A guide to the research paper. Tierney, John. "The Road to Hell is Clogged with Righteous Hybrids." The New York Times (August 30, 2005).
2	18-Sep	The tragedy of the world's commons	Hardin, Garret. 1968. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162: 1243-48. (Stavins, Chapter 2). Tierney, John. 2000. "A Tale of Two Fisheries." The New York Times (August 27, 2000). A game theory version of Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons' Ec465 final paper 1 and Ec465 final paper 2
3	25-Sep	The Pigouvian and the Coasian approaches to externalities	Baumol, William J. and Wallace E. Oates. 1988. The Theory of Environmental Policy (Chapter 3.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (ERES). Coase, Ronald. 1960. "The Problem of Social Cost." The Journal of Law and Economics. (Stavins, Chapter 3).
4	2-Oct (Yom Kippur)	The Ostrom approach to externalities	Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Chapter 1; Chapter 3 (pp. 88-102); Chapter 5 (the four fisheries examples). Paper proposal (due in class)
	Tuesday, 3-Oct	Research session with Brenda Ellis 7:00 - 8:30, Library 105	'A Library Guide for EC465' (set up by Brenda Ellis of Starr Library).
5	9-Oct	Sustainability, economic growth and the natural resource curse	Solow, Robert. 1992. "An Almost Practical Step Toward Sustainability." Paper presented at Resources for the Future, Washington, DC. (ERES) Dasgupta, Susmita et al. 2002. "Confronting the Environmental Kuznets Curve." Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (1): 147-68. (ERES) Isham, Jonathan, et al. 2005. "The Varieties of the Resource Experience." The World Bank Economic Review 9 (2): 141-74 Review of two journal articles (due in class)
6	16-Oct	Midterm recess
II. Special topics in environmental economics
7	23-Oct	Some environmental implications of economic theory	Memo from Larry Summers (or try this URL)- December 12, 1991 Simpson, R. David. 1998. "Economic Analysis and Ecosystems: Some Concepts and Issues." Ecological Applications (2): 342-49. (Stavins, Chapter 25). Fullerton, Don and Robert Stavins. 1998. "How Economists See the Environment." Nature 395: 6701. (Stavins, Chapter 1). Langewiesche, William. 2000. 'The Shipbreakers' The Atlantic Monthly (August 2000).
8	30-Oct	--	Midterm exam (in class) Midterm from Fall 2002 Answers to Midterm from Fall 2002 Midterm from Fall 2003 Answers to Midterm from Fall 2003
9	6-Nov	The tragedy of the North Atlantic Cod (Selected slides)	Gordon, H. Scott. 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource." (Sections I-III). The Journal of Political Economy 62(2):124-42. Kurlansky, Mark. 1997. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.
	Friday, 10-Nov	--	First draft of research papers due by 5:00 PM in section folder. PLEASE ALSO ARRANGE TO PASS IT TO YOUR REFEREE VIA EMAIL OR THE CLASS FOLDER.
10	13-Nov	Trade, the environment and firm performance	Esty, Daniel. 2001. "Bridging the Trade-Environment Divide." Journal of Economic Perspectives 15 (3): 113-30. Porter, Michael and Class van der Linde. 1995. "Towards a New Conception of the Environment-Competitivess Relationship." Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (4): 97-118. (Stavins, Chapter 7). Palmer, Karen, Wallace Oates and Paul Portney "Tightnening Environemntal Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm? " Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (4): 119-132. (Stavins, Chapter 8).
11	20-Nov	What to do about global institutions?	Speth, Gus and Peter Haas. Global Environmental Governance. 2006. Referee report of classmate's first draft of research paper. Example of referee report
12	27-Nov	Market-based policies to reduce climate change	McKibbin, Warwick J. and Peter J. Wilcoxen. 2002. "The Role of Economics in Climate Change Policy" Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (2): 107-29. (Stavins, Chapter 8).(ERES). Barnes, Peter. 2001. Who Owns the Sky? - Chapter 1 - 5.
12	Wednesday 29-Nov		Final draft of research paper in Isham's office
III. Presentation of research projects.
13	4-Dec	Discussion of papers	A guide to presenting your research Brief review of classmate's final draft of research paper (two copies due in class).