ecoservices, picture

Training

Eco Services Group
image

ASU Courses

SOS 512: Sustainable resource allocation

Spring 2008 Outline (PDF)

Semester hours: 3

Course instructors: Charles Perrings (Coordinator), Joshua Abbott

Assessment: Term paper (25%), Presentation (25%), Mid term exam (50%)

Pre-requisites: No pre-requisites, however students will be expected to have demonstrated competence in basic microeconomics, ecology and mathematics at the undergraduate level.

Co-requisites: None

Aims: To enable students to apply economic principles to the sustainable use of environmental goods and services.

Learning Outcomes
Students are expected to develop the following skills:

  • to understand the essential concepts and methods of environmental economics
  • to be able to apply these concepts and methods to the sustainable use of environmental services
  • to be able to identify the regulatory and policy options required to deal with sustainability problems involving externality and the provision of environmental public goods at different spatial and temporal scales
  • to use the skills acquired to formulate, analyse and solve specific problems

Outline: The course comprises both lectures and problem solving seminars. It is built around a core set of lectures on the application of economic principles to the sustainable use of environmental goods and services. These provide the tool kit needed to specify and solve sustainability problems. Topics include the nature of environmental externality and environmental public goods, the valuation of non-market environmental resources, environmental regulation and policy including the use of market-based instruments, decision-making under uncertainty, adaptation to and mitigation of environmental change. Beyond these lectures the course will take a number of sustainability issues, and require students to specify and solve the resource allocation problems involved, using available literature and data. Results will be presented in course seminars.

back to top