Instructor: John Mackenzie; office: Townsend 215; phone 831-1312 (w), 373-3723 (c); email johnmack@udel.edu
Office hours: Wed. 1-2pm or by appointment.

This course has been redesigned as a first-semester graduate-level class for MS students in AREC and related programs, with an enhanced emphasis on development of students’ analytical skills.  I will assign a series of problem sets and writing exercises.  Students will be assigned individual articles to read and summarize for the class.  At the end of the course each student will develop and present a brief seminar to the class. 
 
US sugar quotas
demand theory & welfare analysis
intro to Excel's regression utility (optional)
money and schools
determinants of development
discounting problems
exhaustible resource depletion problems
logistic functions
bioeconomics of an open-access fishery
oil spill damage assessment

suggested readings/resources:

Tietenberg, Tom Environmental & Natural Resource Economics(text for other classes)
Levitt, Steven & Stephen Dubner Freakonomics
Surowiecki, James The Wisdom of Crowds
Schwartz, Barry The Paradox of Choice
Olson, Mancur, Power & Prosperity and Logic of Collective Action: public goods and the theory of groups
Buchanan, James M., The Calculus of Consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy
Tullock, Gordon, Government Failure: a primer in public choice
Fogel, Robert & Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross
Kennedy, Peter, A Guide to Econometrics (great resource for future econometrics classes)
Schaum outline series Intro to Mathematical Economics(calculus apps. in economics)

tentative sequence of topics:

assessment of student backgrounds/skills; what is economics? 
review: utility/demand; substitution, income, elasticity
review: production/supply, LR v. SR, market structure, monopoly & oligopoly
inflation, CPI, index numbers (Paasche, Lespeyres), surplus, CV, EV, CS, ES
methodology of economics: hypotheses, testability v. immunity, paradigm of economics?
econometric intro

property rights defined; who gets to vote? who owns the market? rights of children, animals, slaves...
taxonomy of market failures (externalities, public goods, market imperfections, govt. failure)
roles of government; taxes & distortions, efficiency v. equity, intergenerational debt, sustainability
poverty, tax progressiveness, income distributions
match problems; marriage & fertility, dowries, adoptions, polygamy, selective abortion...
Swift, Ricardo & Malthus, scarcity, rents, Marx/Engels, Hardin
population & development, Diamond’s Guns, Germs & Steel and Collapse; colonialism, dependency
development strategies, role of women

social status, positional competition (Veblen, Frank), Easterlin hypothesis
social institutions; exit, voice & loyalty
education: public schools, desegregation, funding, Prop13, performance gaps, choice, vouchers
health care: information asymmetry, technology & drugs, regulation, Medicare….

discounting; benefit-cost analysis
indices of scarcity, static reserve index, USGS resources v. reserves, market responses to scarcity
two-period exhaustible resource allocation problem
efficient allocation of exhaustible resources over an indeterminate time horizon
energy resources; whale oil, petroleum, OPEC, market and policy responses, “windfall” profits
anti-trust law, utility pricing, regulation/deregulation, auction theory
recycling & solid waste management
water scarcity & allocation doctrines, the Newark reservoir
agriculture, family farms, the Farm Bill & other policy distortions, US sugar quotas, GMO’s, WTO
farm/forest/wetland/habitat protection; zoning, tax incentives, PDR/TDR, intl. debt-for-nature swaps

Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Olson; market democracy, communism/socialism/central planning, fascism
regulation & government capture (rent control example), special interests and rent-seeking
Congressional pork, vote-trading, campaign finance; public choice theory; voting methods, why vote? 
related-market valuation methods: recreation travel cost; hedonic pricing, averting expenditures
non-market (survey) valuation methods: CVM, referendum, conjoint; what are respondents valuing?

optimal forest rotation models; multi-use; US forest and public-lands policies, international forest trade
fisheries: population dynamics, optimal control model, open-access externalities & management
endangered species: ESA, rhinos & Viagra, poaching, privatization

pollution control strategies: ambient/effluent/technology standards, taxes/subsidies, TEQ’s
Pigovian taxes vs. Coasian bargaining
policy evolution from command-and-control to incentive-based approaches.
US: water pollution; oil spills; toxics; Superfund; acid rain program;
auto emissions, highway safety and congestion, transportation policy
international: ozone protection, CFCC phase-out; greenhouse gases and climate change