Global and Climate Change Economics

This course provides a compendium to the economists' views on climate change. The course will apply economic and econometric principles to the analysis of climate change problems. Besides applying advanced microeconomics concepts to the analysis of climate policies as in a standard environmental economics course, the course will introduce the basics toolkit of climate modeling and the main econometric issues to estimate climate change impacts on socioeconomic variables. Finally, the international dimension of climate change policies will be analyzed using game theory and in-class games. An active students' participation is required through group presentations and collective discussions around the main debates on climate policies.

At the end of the course students will get a comprehensive knowledge of the main climate change issues and their policy solutions; will be familiar with pros and cons of different policy instruments; will get acquainted with the main econometric and modelling techniques used in climate change economics; will be up to date with the international climate change negotiation process, political drivers of climate policies and their acceptability. This knowledge will enable student to interpret critically the results of the rapidly expanding body of economic literature assessing the effect of climate change impacts and policies, will expand students' capacity to think in a multi-disciplinary way connecting political, scientific and economic processes on climate change issues; should contribute to form the students' skills to conduct independent research in these areas.