Course Description
Introduces alternative frameworks to provide environmental, economic, and social valuations of human activities with environmental impacts. Emphasis is placed on benefit-cost analysis and on the methods available for estimating economic benefits and costs of environmental policy decisions.
Athena Title
ENV VALUATION
Prerequisite
AAEC 3580-3580L
Pre or Corequisite
AAEC 4610-4610L
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course students will: - Become familiar with alternative frameworks to analyze environmental impacts of human activities - Understand how economists deal with benefit-cost analysis of alternative allocations of environmental goods where markets do not exist - Learn how to employ a variety of environmental valuation methods and how to correctly apply them to different environmental problems
Topical Outline
1. Introduction: Why Environmental Valuation? 2. Externalities, market failure, and the limitations of the System of National Accounts 3. Frameworks of analysis- Impact analysis- Cost- Effectiveness Analysis- Damage Assessment- Risk Analysis- Benefit Cost Analysis 4. Benefit-Cost Analysis: The Mechanics- Steps in a BCA- Measuring the costs- Measuring the benefits 5. Benefit-Cost Analysis: Discounting 6. Environmental Valuation: Methods to put a price tag on the environment 7. Overview of environmental valuation methods 8. Revealed preference methods- Travel Cost Analysis- Hedonic Pricing 9. Stated preference methods- Contingent valuation- Choice experiments 10. An application: Measuring the value of ecosystem services 11. Should we put a price tag on the environment? Some ethical considerations
Syllabus