ARE 265:  Advanced Topics in Environmental and Resource Economics  

Peter Berck and David Sunding

Syllabus (not final yet)

Mondays 12-2.  Room 207 Giannini Hall (David Sundings Office) until further notice

Grading:  There will 4 problem sets (worth a total of 40% of the grade) and a final worth 60% of the grade.

 

Topics for Fall 2015 with selected readings. 

 

Lectures 1 and 2.  Water Resources: Rights, Conservation, Groundwater, and Technology Adoption.

Buck, S., M. Auffhammer and D. Sunding, “Land Markets and the Value of Water: Hedonic Analysis Using Repeat Sales of Farmland,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2013, in press.

Burness, S. and J. Quirk, “Appropriative Water Rights and the Efficient Allocation of Resources,” American Economic Review 69(1979): 25-37.

Caswell, M. and D. Zilberman, “The Effects of Well Depth and Land Quality on the Choice of Irrigation Technology,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 68(1986): 798-811.

Chong, H. and D. Sunding, “Water Markets and Trading,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31(2006): 1-22.

Gisser, M., “Groundwater: Focusing on the Real Issue,” Journal of Political Economy 91(1983): 1001-1027.

Green, G. et al., “Explaining Irrigation Technology Choices: A Microparameter Approach,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 78(1996): 1064-1072.

Hamilton, S., T. Sproul, D. Sunding and D. Zilberman, “Environmental Policy with Collective Waste Disposal,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2014, in press.

Mansur, E. and S. Olmstead, “The Value of Scarce Water: Measuring the Inefficiency of Municipal Regulations,” Journal of Urban Economics 71(2012): 332-346.

Renwick, M. and R. Green, “Do Residential Water Demand Side Management Policies Measure Up? An Analysis of Eight CaliforniaWater Agencies, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (2000): 37-55.

Schoengold, K., G. Moreno and D. Sunding, “Panel Estimation of an Agricultural Water Demand Function,” Water Resources Research 42(2006): W09411, doi:10.1029/2005WR004096.

3. Land Use Sprawl, and Permitting

Glaeser, E. and M. Kahn, “Sprawl and Urban Growth,” Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, J. Henderson & J. Thisse (ed.), Elsevier, 2004.

Mayer, C. and T. Somerville, “Land Use Regulation and New Construction,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 30(2000): 639-662.

D Newburn, P Berck – “Exurban development” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 62(2011)323-336.

4. Endangered Species Act

Auffhammer, M., M. Oren and D. Sunding, “The Impact of Critical Habitat Designation on the Market for Vacant Land,” Journal of Law & Economics, 2013, forthcoming.

Quigley, J. and A. Swoboda, “The Urban Impacts of the Endangered Species Act,” Journal of Urban Economics (2007): 299-318.

Pederson, W., “Using Federal Environmental Regulations to Bargain for Private Land Use Control,” Yale Journal on Regulation (2004): 1-64.

Sunding, D. and J. Terhorst, “Conserving Endangered Species through Regulation of Urban Development: The Case of California Vernal Pools,” Land Economics, 2013, in press.

5 and 6.  Option and Irreversibility.  Option value, real options, irreversibility.

Dixit, Avinash K. Investment under uncertainty. Princeton university press, 1994.

McDonald, Robert L., and Daniel Siegel. "The value of waiting to invest."  NBER (1982).

7.  Pest Management

Hueth, D., and Uri Regev. "Optimal agricultural pest management with increasing pest resistance." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 56.3 (1974): 543-552.

Waterfield, Gina, and David Zilberman. "Pest management in food systems: An economic perspective." Annual Review of Environment and Resources 37 (2012): 223-245.

Livingston, Michael J., Gerald A. Carlson, and Paul L. Fackler. "Managing resistance evolution in two pests to two toxins with refugia." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86.1 (2004): 1-13.

8 and 9  Open Access Fishery

Bjorndal, T. and Conrad, J.  The Dynamics of an Open Access Fishery.  Canadian Journal of Economics.  20(1987):74-85

Grafton RQ, Squires D, Fox KJ "Private property and economic efficiency: A study of a common-pool resource" JOURNAL OF LAW & ECONOMICS 43 (2): 679-713 OCT 2000

P. Berck and C. Costello.  The Regulated and Ruined Fishery.  Mimeo 2003

Homans FR, Wilen JE "A model of regulated open access resource use" JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT 32 (1): 1-21 JAN 1997

Martin D. Smith Corresponding Author Contact Information E-mail The Corresponding Authora and James E. Wilen   Economic impacts of marine reserves: the importance of spatial behavior JEEM   Volume 46, Issue 2, September 2003, Pages 183-206 doi:10.1016/S0095-0696(03)00024-X  

10. Extinction

*P. Berck.  “Open Access and Extinction.”  Econometrica, No. 47 (1979), pp. 877-882.

*Kremer M, Morcom C "Elephants" AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW 90 (1): 212-234 MAR 2000

*Bulte E.H. and G.C. van Kooten, 1999. "Economics of antipoaching enforcement and the ivory trade ban" American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81: 453-466

*The complex interactions of markets for endangered species products  Carolyn Fischer  JEEM 2004:926-953

11 and 12. Forestry

P. Berck.  “The Economics of Timber:  A Renewable Resource in the Long Run.”  Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 447-461.

A. G. McQuillan.  “The Declining Even Flow Effect—Non-Sequitur of National Forest Planning.”  Forest Science, No. 32 (1986), pp. 960-972. (not online, available in the Biosci SD1 .F6145 )

R. Hartman.  “The Harvesting Decision Where a Standing Forest Has Value.” Economic Inquiry, No. 14 (1976), pp. 52-58.

Sohngen B, Mendelsohn R "An optimal control model of forest carbon sequestration" AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 85 (2): 448-457 MAY 2003

13-14 . Effects of Climate on Agriculture

W Schlenker, MJ Roberts - Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to US crop yields under climate change Proceedings of the National …, 2009 - National Acad Sciences

 

MJ Roberts, W Schlenker - Identifying Supply and Demand Elasticities of Agricultural Commodities: Implications for the US Ethanol Mandate. The American Economic Review, 2013 - ingentaconnect.com

 

M Burke, J Dykema, DB LobellE Miguel Incorporating Climate Uncertainty into Estimates of Climate Change Impacts - Review of Economics 2014 - MIT Press

 

O Deschenes, M Greenstone - The economic impacts of climate change: evidence from agricultural output and random fluctuations in weather The American Economic Review, 2007 -