STUDENTS: Katharine N. Farrell
Environmental Economic Instruments 2010/2011
Aims of the Course:
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a good basic understanding of the various
types of economics oriented environmental policy instruments discussed in the academic
environmental economics literature and employed by policy makers on the ground in democratic
societies. Review of three basic types of economics oriented environmental policy instruments -
Performance Related Standards; Taxation & Subsidy; and Market Based Instruments – will form
the basis for the course, which is intended to complement and to draw upon learning in policy
analysis undertaken in other modules of the course.
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Assignments:
In Class Project Work: 20% of total mark
The class will be split up into three Project Groups, each of which will work on one of the three
different types of environmental economics policies reviewed in the course:
Command and Control; Market Based Instruments; Taxation & Subsidy.
The Project Groups are expected to:
- review the policy that has been assigned to their group and to develop, as a team, a good
basic understanding of the purpose of the policy and the ways that it is related to economic and
environmental activities.
- identify at least one and no more than three specific economics oriented instruments
within the policy (i.e. a particular tax, like the plastic bag tax, or the set up of a specific rule,
such as requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment), which will be used as the basis for the
assessment to be carried out by the group as an assignment
- review and discuss, with respect to the work of the assignment, all readings posted onto
the course web-tool under Sections 2: Instrument Options and 3: Distinct Features of
Economics Oriented Environmental Policy
- review, together, the Assessment Framework Template, which is provided in html and pdf
format (for download) on the course web-tool
- make decisions about how to divide up the work of carrying out the assessment among the
members of the group: e.g. some people focus on one instrument and some on another, or some
people focus on the Environment Objective(s) others on the People Objective(s) and others (or
perhaps everyone together) on the Interactions Objective(s)
- gather together materials and information and prepare notes regarding each of the steps
within the template
Final Project Work Assignment: 60% of total mark
Based on their learning from working with the Project Groups, students will select an
environmental economics oriented policy of their choice, for which they will carry out a similar
assessment. These Final Project Work Assignments will be carried out using the same
Assessment Framework Template that is used in the Project Group Assignment.
Click Here to download the Template
Click Here to download an Example of the Template