NIFK14003U Incentives and Regulation

Volume 2014/2015
Education
MSc Programme in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
MSc Programme in Agricultural Economics
MSc Programme in Agriculture
Content

The central themes of the course are the economic problems caused by market failures (e.g. externalities such as pollution) and the design of policy instruments to address these problems. The main components of the course are:

1) Market failure as the economic problem caused by e.g. pollution. Here several cases of market failure will be analyzed. Examples are externalities, common property goods and public goods.

2) The design of policy instruments to alleviate market failure caused by environmental problems. Here the emphasis will be on instruments that set incentives to reduce emissions such as taxes, subsidies, tradable permit schemes and liability rules. Issues covered are the regulation of point and non-point pollution, emissions and ambient regulation, optimal regulation under uncertainty, uniformly and non-uniformly mixed pollutants and the political economy of instrument choice. Furthermore, in connection with taxes we will discuss the existence of a double dividend and under tradable permits the issue of market power and transaction costs.

3) The design of policy instruments to alleviate other types of market failure. Here we will draw on examples from other relevant areas (e.g development economics, industrial organization etc.).

Learning Outcome

It is the objective of this course to provide a comprehensive presentation of the theoretical and methodological aspects of the economic theory of environmental economics, especially of environmental policy in order to enable students to evaluate the economic efficiency of environmental policies.

Knowledge:
- Describe the meaning in Welfare Economics of Economic Efficiency and Market Imperfections
- Describe the use of Pigouvian Taxes and Quota Regulation
and Regulation.
- Define Damage Cost and Abatement Cost describe the terms in a Welfare Economics set-up.
- Describe Liabiliby
- Describe Political Economy


Skills:
- Explain the effects of regulating a market
- Analyse externality problems to identify suitable economic instruments
- Compare effectiveness and efficiency of environmental and other regulation

Competences:
- Apply economic regulation to environmental and other problems.
- Evaluate the welfare economic consequenses of applying economic regulation to environmental and other problems

 

 

The literature will be announced at Absalon when the course begins. The literature could as an example consist of the below mentioned textbooks and on journal articles.

Hanley, N., Shogren, J.F. and White, B.: Environmental Economics in Theory and Practice, Macmillan Press, 2006.

Baumol, W.J., Oates, W.E.: The Theory of Environmental Policy, 2nd Edition, 1988.

 

 

Competences that equals
LOJB10259 Micro Economics
Applied Game Theory or equivalent
LOJF10218 Consumer Economics and Policy
Lectures and exercises
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Exam
  • 4
  • Lectures
  • 36
  • Preparation
  • 142
  • Theory exercises
  • 24
  • Total
  • 206
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written examination, 4 timer under invigilation
Four hours in leture hall
Exam registration requirements
2 mandatory written assignments must be handed in punctually during the course. Assignments must be approved.
Aid
All aids allowed
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Re-exam
If 10 or fewer register for the reexamination the examination form will be oral.
Criteria for exam assesment

See learning outcome