Independent Study Workshops > PPA 990 Independent Study on Natural Resource Economics

Reading list

General References: Useful references on intertemporal optimization and resource economics.
Introduction: Introduction to resources; review of differential equations
Sustainable Steady State Analysis of Renewable Resources: Search vs schooling fisheries; Gordon-Shaefer myopic fishery model; extensions; adding sunk capital; phase diagrams and stability analysis.
Deterministic and Stochastic Intertemporal Optimization: Optimal control and dynamic programming; current and constant value Hamiltonian; first order conditions and transversality conditions; fixed vs free state problems; fixed vs free time problems; infinite horizon problems; stochastic problems and dynamic programming.
Renewables: Single and multiple rotation forest management; managing a forest producing amenities; allocating surface water between uses and across time; optimal use of aquifers; real world impediments to efficiency; good and bad policies for improving market outcomes.
Amenities and Irreversibility: Amenity resources, technical progress and irreversible conversion of amenity resources to other uses.
Exhaustible Resources: Optimal rates of depletion and exploration; the Hotelling; extensions to the Hotelling model; the role of exploration.
Key Issues in Resource Policy: Discounting, scarcity and sustainability; the ethical basis for present value calculations; appropriate choice of interest rates; is resource scarcity a problem? How should scarcity be measured?
Energy Economics: The role of energy in the economy; past and future oil price shocks; short and long term energy demand; climate change.

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Peter J Wilcoxen, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University
Revised 09/09/2011