Content
The main objective of this course is to provide an overview of econometric and empirical tools in environmental economics (such as Differences-in-Differences, Instrumental Variables, Regression Discontinuity) and to teach you how to apply these methods to real-world data. The course will combine lectures and tutorials (exercises) and focuses hereby on four different aspects.
1) The first part of the course explains and discusses the econometric concepts and methods for research in environmental economics (lectures).
2) In the second part, the course will cover applications of recent papers in the field of environmental economics to illustrate how these methods can be successfully applied. By going through the applied literature, students are expected to critically read and discuss articles and be able to summarize findings, as well as the pros and cons of different econometric models. Each student will be assigned a recent paper to be presented during class in a short presentation (~15 minutes), summarizing the research design and the scientific results. Students are expected to critically discuss the papers’ research strategies and important policy implications.
3) The third part of the course focuses on hands-on applications in the tutorials. The emphasis will be primarily on the practical implementation of the methods to datasets in environmental economics using the software R. Data will be provided. The students will learn how to design their estimation strategies and to appropriately interpret regression results of various estimators. Working in groups, students will have to write a code to replicate an empirical method taught during the class. Students will present their codes in a short presentation (~15 minutes).
During the course, further potential research questions are discussed. The students will have to work on a specific research question and submit a seminar paper (10 - 15 pages).
