2015/16 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

SOEE3750 Sustainability Economics in Practice

10 creditsClass Size: 40

Module manager: Dr Julia Martin-Ortega
Email: J.Martin-Ortega@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2015/16

Pre-requisite qualifications

Good understanding in economic theories.

Pre-requisites

SOEE2610

Economics and Sustainability

This module is approved as a discovery module

Module summary

Sustainability economists believe that practical solutions to pressing social and environmental problems require new interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the links among economic, social, and environmental systems. By understanding some principles and theories in the field of environmental and ecological economics in the pre-requisite module (SOEE2610), the students will have the opportunity to put those theories into practice to solve real life problems. This module enables the students to develop understanding and operate a number of decision information tools in sustainability policy decision making process from both macro- and micro- levels. Students will study the principle and practice of various environmental and ecological policy decision tools and their applications to real life environment issues.

Objectives

The key objective of the module is to allow students to develop significant quantitative skills in modelling interactions between socioeconomic activities and environmental consequences. This module will enable students to transform environmental and ecological economic theories and principles (learned in SOEE2610) into practice by operating a number of analytical and decision-making tools in environmental analysis.

Learning outcomes
On completion of this module students will be able to understand some new or further environmental and ecological theories and principles (e.g. globalization, international trade, welfare economics and behavior economics) and utilize key analytical tools (e.g. environmental cost-benefit analyses, marginal abatement cost curves, environmental accounting tools) to demonstrate how those theories are presented in the interaction processes between economy and environment.

Skills outcomes
The module builds upon SOEE2610 but extends further understanding in environmental and ecological theories. The module also make strong emphasis on practice analysing, synthesising and summarising information critically, including prior research and applying knowledge and understanding to address familiar and unfamiliar problems. The module will teach the utilisation of environmental and ecological tools in analysing interactions between economy and environment for the topics such as international trade, globalisation, pricing and so on. The module places moderate emphasis on collecting and integrating several lines of evidence to formulate and test hypotheses; planning, conducting and reporting on investigations, including the use of secondary data; preparing, processing, interpreting and presenting data, using appropriate qualitative and quantitative techniques and packages; solving numerical problems using computer based techniques.

Syllabus

1. Ecological macroeconomics (selected topics including drivers of economic growth, Environmental Kuznets Curves, IPAT and environmental rebound effects)
2. Globalisation and international trade and introduction of environmental input-output analysis as an analytical tool to conduct environmental accounting.
3. Critical introduction to welfare economics and cost-benefit analysis
4. Introduction of behavioural economics and game theory applications.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	10	1.50	15.00
Practical	8	2.00	16.00
Private study hours			69.00
Total Contact hours			31.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			100.00

Private study

Private study will consist of the following:
Background reading for lectures (2hr per lecture)
Preparation for practical sessions (8hr - 1 hr per session)
Research and writing assignments

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Students’ progresses will be closely monitored during practical sessions. The module will arrange 8 x 2 hours practical session. Students understanding in economic principles and skills in operating economic models will be assessed by in-class problem sets.Four in-class exercises will be conducted by students. Each exercise would be worth 10% of final module mark. Each student would choose a particular topic in the field of environmental or ecological economics research by using learned tools to implement the 2nd assignment (2500 essay).

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
In-course Assessment	4x in-class exercises (10% each)	40.00
Essay	Essay - 2500 words	60.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Students are required to utilize learned analytical methods to investigate scopes and limits of climate change mitigations in the self-selected case study cities or countries.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 21/08/2015

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