Environmental and Energy Economics

The energy, environment and resource field covers the economics of pollution, renewable and exhaustible resources with a focus on energy. The field covers both theory and empirics, with an emphasis on well identified studies of regulatory cost or benefit.

The first two courses in the field include the fundamentals of resource economics including the classic Hotelling problem, both theory and empirical; optimal control and dynamic programming in a resource context; Pigouvian prices, double dividends, and the Coase theorem; pollution control and enforcement; measuring the value of clean air and clean water; and measuring the costs of clean air and water; electricity supply and demand,the economics of energy and fuel efficiency, decision making under uncertainty and with anticipated learning; climate change policy; hyperbolic discounting; disentangling risk aversion and intertemporal substitutability, and a collection of topics in environmental policy design and implementation (with an emphasis on market-based emissions regulation). The field also includes a third course that presents a much more detailed view of the dynamic issues in resource economics including stock pollutants and climate change.

Reflecting the policy importance of the subject, the faculty is dedicated not only to academic pursuits, but also to policy and to governmental and non-governmental organizations. Similarly, some students prepare to pursue academic careers, while others prefer to work closer to policy makers and projects managers, finding employment in the private and non-profit sectors.

Michael L Anderson's picture
Environmental economics, health economics, applied econometrics, especially relating to questions of causal inference
Severin Borenstein's picture
Industrial organization and government regulation, energy economics, applied microeconomic theory
Anthony FISHER's picture
Environmental decision-making under uncertainty, optimal timing of climate change policy, potential impacts of global warming on agriculture and other sectors of the economy
Meredith Lynn Fowlie's picture
Energy, environmental regulation
J. Keith Gilless's picture
Economics of forestry, especially forest management planning, wildland fire protection, international trade in forest products, and regional economics
Michael Hanemann's picture
+1 510 642-3345 (msg only)
Non-market valuation, discrete choice modeling, water demand and pricing, water utility economics, uncertainty and irreversibility in environmental management, environmental policy, climate change
Larry Karp's picture
Trade in carbon permits, trade liberalization and the environment, non-renewable resources models, taxes vs. quotas in global warming, agriculture and environment in China, fisheries, learning in pollution regulation
Gordon Rausser's picture
Environmental regulations, air quality, water quality, quantification of environmental externalities, biodiversity, stigmatized property values, collective decision-making and multilateral bargaining
David Roland-Holst's picture
Development, energy, environment and climate change, trade, food and agricultural policy
David ZILBERMAN's picture
Environmental policy, water, pest control, climate change, environmental risks and technologies