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Prerequisites: Principles of Economics and one semester of calculus.

The objective of this course is to introduce students to the skills and methods necessary to understand and evaluate the economic and financial aspects of sustainable development. Throughout the course, students will compare competing objectives and policies through the prism of economic & financial reasoning. Environmental economics and finance are broad areas covering all the multi-faceted and complex interactions between the economic system and the natural environment. Financial markets are the primary source of signals used to direct economic activity in a capitalist global economy. Economic activity is the primary determinant of the quality and sustainability of the natural environment. Students interested in sustainable development who are unfamiliar with economics and who do not develop a facility with economic and financial concepts are severely handicapped in their efforts to increase the level of environmental responsibility embedded in economic activity. This course is intended to provide students with a flying introduction to key analytical concepts required to understand topics in environmental economics and finance and to introduce them to selected topics within the field. The first part of the course (the Analytical Toolbox) is designed to provide a set of portable skills for two sets of students: a) those who will work in fields specifically devoted to sustainable development who, as part of their work, will need to engage with sources of economic & financial information and with discourses where sustainable development is not a focus; and b) students who may end up following careers in organizations where sustainability is not the primary objective. The topics and readings in the second part of the course were chosen to facilitate a critical engagement with the broad intellectual framework underlying sustainable development from the perspective of economics and finance. The topics are intended to create a community of intellectual discourse on sustainable development that will spill over beyond the classroom to the conversations of students and alumni that will far outlive graduation. Offered in the Fall.