Environmental Economics (Eco 345)

Learning Objectives: Environmental Economics (Eco 345)

Learning Objectives

  1. Course-specific knowledge.
    1. Markets and market failures. Students will learn how markets allocate goods and why they sometimes fail allocate environmental goods optimally. Students will learn to design regulation which corrects market failures.
    2. International trade and the environment. Students will learn how to regulate pollutants that travel across country boundries and how environmental regulations affect trade flows.
    3. Valuation. Students will learn to use consumer choices to infer demand for environmental quality.
  2. Skill enhancement.
    1. Quantitative Skills. Students learn quantitative skills by working with the mathematical models that show how to allocate environmental goods optimally.
    2. Problem Solving Skills. Problem solving is emphasized, by giving students a set of government policies and asking them to predict the effects on the economy and the environment.

Measurement of Outcomes

  1. Course-specific knowledge.
    1. Markets and market failures. Outcomes are assessed using one homework and one exam.
    2. International trade and the environment. Outcomes are assessed using one homework and one exams.
    3. Valuation. Outcomes are assessed using one homework and one exam.
  2. Skill enhancement.
    1. Quantitative Skills. All homeworks and exams are quantitative in nature. Students are given formulas on exams, but must do the calculus themselves.
    2. Problem Solving Skills. Almost all homeworks and exam questions are problems. No multiple choice (or similar) questions are assigned. Most problems are of the type where students must apply what they know to new and unfamiliar problems, enhancing their ability to use knowledge gained in the class in the outside world. This is especially true of the last exam, which covers applications of the topics learned in class.