wir911 - Advanced Topics of Sustainability Economics (Veranstaltungsübersicht)

Department für WiRe (BWL und Wirtschaftspädagogik)

6 KP

Modulteile

Semesterveranstaltungen Sommersemester 2023

Prüfungsleistung

Vorlesung

2.02.030 - Energy Markets and Policy
- Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Asane-Otoo
- Laura Schürer
Dienstag: 10:15 - 11:45, wöchentlich (ab 11.04.2023)
Donnerstag: 10:15 - 11:45, wöchentlich (ab 13.04.2023)

This is a 6 ECTS lecture/seminar course designed to provide students with an introduction to the principles of energy economics and related policy applications. There are increasing concerns globally on the management of energy resources and their development, such as energy security, environmental impacts of energy use, regulation, investment in renewable energy, risk assessment or safety issues of nuclear power etc. Understanding the characteristics of the different energy markets in terms of demand, supply, investments, energy-economy-environment interactions, and related policy aspects is critical to effective policy intervention. This course covers the economic tools for analyzing institutions and driving forces of energy markets, including coal, natural gas, crude oil, gasoline/diesel, electricity, and renewables, with a focus on understanding supply and demand changes, prices, production, and investment as well as the motives and consequences of policy interventions. Students will be introduced to the environmental implications of energy use and the role of economic analysis in designing policies that address issues of energy security, climate change, and the distributive consequences of climate policies. Regarding the distributional impacts of climate policies, we will address theoretical concepts, including incidence or inequality and their measurement, and analyze the distributive effects of current climate policies. Throughout the course, theoretical discussions will be complemented with empirical evidence and research that explores different aspects of the energy markets to help students better understand the respective energy markets. Ancillary objectives of the course include supporting students to develop research topics and introducing them to academic writing. To this end, students will develop some expertise in working with real-world energy data and policies and writing a research paper. The course starts with a series of lectures on selected topics. The lecture sessions aim to facilitate the development of students’ understanding of the economic theory related to the various energy markets. Students will be guided to develop their research projects during the first half of the semester. The projects could be related to the distributive consequences of climate policies, inequality in adaptation to climate change, climate justice, market power and collusion in the retail fuel market, barriers to the adoption of renewable energy technologies, and challenges of renewables in the electricity market. Other topics include the impact of climate change on transportation systems, effects of overlapping energy and climate regulations, Russia-Ukraine war and energy poverty, Subjective Well-being and energy prices, Edgeworth cycles in the retail gasoline market, limits on domestic flights as emissions reduction strategy, the incidence and emissions impact of fuel tax in Germany, vertical vs. horizontal distributive effects of climate policies, incidence of climate policies – developed vs. developing countries etc. Note that students can choose topics listed or develop their own topics of interest. At the start of the second part of the course, students will present their tentative research projects and receive input from instructors. They will then use the remaining period to work on their research projects with the support of instructors. Towards the end of the semester, there will be a 2-day block seminar where students will present their work in a scientific conference format.
2.11.023 - Digital Transformation: Strategies and Sustainability
- Prof. Dr. Jörn Hoppmann
- Katharina Gärtner
- Swantje Freund
Mittwoch: 16:15 - 19:45, wöchentlich (ab 12.04.2023), Ort: A14 1-103 (Hörsaal 3), A10 1-121 (Hörsaal F)

Übung

Seminar

2.02.823 - Inequality and Environmental Policy
- Laura Schürer
- Lukas Riesenbeck
Mittwoch: 12:15 - 13:45, wöchentlich (ab 12.04.2023), Ort: A05 0-054
Donnerstag: 12:15 - 13:45, wöchentlich (ab 13.04.2023), Ort: A05 1-159
Termine am Freitag, 14.07.2023 15:15 - 19:45, Samstag, 15.07.2023 10:15 - 19:45, Sonntag, 16.07.2023 10:15 - 14:45, Ort: A14 1-112, A05 1-159
Motivation and background: The distributive effects (‘incidence’) of environmental policies are becoming increasingly important for the political feasibility of environmental policies addressing e.g. climate change or biodiversity loss. The protest of the yellow vests that stopped Macrons petrol tax due to the expected distributional consequences are a prominent example. Also in Germany the incidence of environmental policies such as the coal exit, a pesticide tax or a land value tax is of high concern in public debates. The need for stringent environmental policies comes at a time where many countries of the world have become becoming increasingly unequal in the distribution of income and wealth. In Germany for example, the Gini index of disposable income increased from 0.25 in the 1980s to 0.293 in 2015. Therefore, the acceptance and political feasibility of environmental policies depends not only on their aggregate costs, but also on their distributional effects. On the global stage the trends are slightly different, but the challenge remains the same. Global income inequality has fallen over the last decades but the impact of fundamental global environmental changes caused by human action will have increasingly strong distributional effects not only within but also between countries. Therefore, also the (economic) resources for adaptation and mitigation strategies against climate change must be distributed within and between countries. While economics as a discipline has focused mainly on efficiency in the past, policy makers are frequently more concerned with distributive effects and justice. In this course, we aim at learning and extending state-of-the-art environmental economics methods to analyze, understand and manage the distributional implications of environmental policies and enable students to apply these to real world cases. Aims and scope: In this course, we will study the multifaceted relationships between inequality and environmental policy. The course starts with a series of lectures on inequality, distribute justice and environmental policy instruments. Thereby students will be encouraged and supported to stepwise develop their own project. This could be for instance an analysis of the distributive effects of the diesel car ban in German cities, pesticide taxes, the German coal exit or energy turn, house prices in urban centers or biodiversity loss. Further topics include the distribution of risks related to climate change, macroeconomic consequences of environmental policies or multilateral action against climate change in an unequal world. Students will present sketches for their projects early on. In the following seminar weeks student have time to work on their project under the support by the lectures. Finally, in a two days block course students will present their project in a scientific conference style and mutually review their papers.

Hinweise zum Modul

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen	none
Prüfungszeiten	By the end of the lecture period
Prüfungsleistung Modul	Written exam
Kompetenzziele	This course aims at giving students an understanding of reasons, goals and instruments for climate policy, as well as implied complications due to the long term characteristics and the international dimension of climate change. Students first learn basics about the natural science of climate change and the main statements of climate research about the anthropogenic contribution to it. The economic interpretation of too high pollution as symptom of a market failure then leads to the treatment of policy instruments, and the understanding of economic efficiency as a prerequisite for effective climate policy. Game theoretic analysis of international negotiations and agreements provides key insights about the “international” dimension of the problem. By means of practical examples students then see in detail the functionality and pitfalls of selected implemented (or currently discussed) policies, e.g. the EU-ETS. With successful completion of the course, students shall be able to judge climate policy issues on an informed scientific basis (natural science and economics).