Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session
Prerequisite
11.203 (Introductory Microeconomics course) or an equivalent intermediate microeconomics course taken elsewhere and knowledge of one or more economic modeling techniques (general equilibrium, input-output, linear programming, logit, regression, etc.). Students who have taken the two-semester regional economics sequence in 11.481 and 11.482 will find this seminar especially useful, but others are very welcome.
Requirements
Each week, we will meet for two hours on Tuesday evenings. Two or three lectures may also occur during the week at times when the outside speakers are available. Each student will write a 30-page, double-spaced term paper on a subject related to the seminar. At session 4, students will submit a two-page outline of the proposed topic and at session 5, each student will provide a brief oral description to the seminar participants on their selected topic. The final paper is due by session 11, with students presenting a short description of their paper at session 12 (last class of the semester).
Overview
This subject is on regional energy-environmental modeling rather than on general energy-environmental policies, but the models should have some policy relevance. We will start with some discussion of green accounting issues; then, we will cover a variety of theoretical and empirical topics related to spatial energy demand and supply, energy forecasts, national and regional energy prices, and environmental implications of regional energy consumption and production. Where feasible, the topics will have a spatial dimension. This is a new seminar, so we expect students to contribute material to the set of readings and topics covered during the semester.