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This class draws on economic tools, such as game theory, and offers a coherent framework that can be used to analyze environmental problems as well as solutions. The models are relevant for both local and international environmental problems. We will analyze environmental problems as market failures, and how these can be corrected with taxes or permits. Deforestation and conservation will also be covered. Next, we will model countries' strategic choices of emissions, their investments in technology, and alternative designs of agreements. We will also think carefully about "the value of the future", and thus "discounting". The material will draw on some articles but mostly lectures notes.

Under supervision of a Social Science Division faculty member on a subject of mutual interest.

In this course, students will learn how to influence active policy and legislative processes and bring their specific expertise to bear on these processes. The class will consist primarily of guest lectures and panels of experts from inside these processes as well as advocates who have successfully shifted policy outcomes. While the class will use domestic and international environmental policy as a primary lens through which to explore what effective advocacy looks like, this class is open to anyone interested in deepening their civic engagement or pursuing a long-term advocacy strategy of any kind. The 1-unit option requires only weekly attendance and posting 1-2 questions for guest speakers on a discussion forum weekly, while the 2-unit option will require students to submit one type of policy document discussed during the quarter as a final project (e.g., draft legislative testimony, a draft public comment letter, or a draft op-ed). The class is primarily intended for graduate students, but upper-level undergraduates may enroll with consent of instructor (email azerbe@stanford.edu with a brief description of your interest in the course and background). This class is primarily being offered for CR/NC, but students who require a letter grade may be able to obtain an exception with instructor permission.

During the past century while, the world's population has more than quadrupled and the population in Israel and its neighbors has grown ten-fold. Mounting consumption has produced an ever-increasing demand for consumer goods and natural resources. At the same time, climate change is already adversely affecting countries in the Middle East. These phenomena combine to place unprecedented pressure on the region's ecosystems and resources, producing myriad insults to environmental quality, public health and local ecosystem integrity. The course considers these issues based on the empirical experience of environmental policies implemented over the past forty-years. The final third of the class considers the potential for regional cooperation to produce improved environmental outcomes. Lectures will address a range of topics associated with concepts of carrying capacity, consumption and the impact of high population density on the quality of life and the environment of Israel and its neighbors. The associated potential and limitations of technology, the impact of conflict on the environment and the potential of transboundary cooperation to produce win-win ecological dynamics will also be assessed. Topics considered include, biodiversity, climate change, marine ecosystem protection, water management and environmental justice. The course focuses on the associated policy insights, applying the experience of government interventions for improving the sustainability of life in Israel and the Middle East.

Adaptation to climate change will not only require new infrastructure and policies, but it will also challenge our local, state and national governments to collaborate across jurisdictional lines in ways that include many different types of private and nonprofit organizations and individual actors. The course explores what it means for communities to be resilient and how they can reach that goal in an equitable and effective way. Using wildfires in California as a case study, the course assesses specific strategies, such as controlled burns and building codes, and a range of planning and policy measures that can be used to enhance climate resilience. In addition, it considers how climate change and development of forested exurban areas (among other factors) have influenced the size and severity of wildfires. The course also examines the obstacles communities face in selecting and implementing adaptation measures (e.g., resource constraints, incentives to develop in forested areas, inadequate policy enforcement, and weak inter-agency coordination). Officials from various organizations contribute to aspects of the course; and students will present final papers to local government officials. Limited enrollment. Students will be asked to prepare short application essays on the first day of class. 

This two-course sequence is a topics and methods sequence focused on the determinants of human well-being over the short and long-run, with a focus on the interplay between environmental factors and human development. The skills relate to gaining facility with main methods that underlie quantitative research in the environmental social sciences, including econometric concepts related to causal inference, spatial data, machine learning, and data visualization. We expect students to enroll in both quarters of the sequence. The course can be taken for 3-5 units and the expectations for students will be adjusted to reflect credits. See syllabus for difference in expectations. Prerequisite: Working knowledge of R (or comparable programming environment) and some previous exposure to econometric methods or upper-level statistics related to causal inference.

Under supervision of a Social Science Division faculty member on a subject of mutual interest.

We focus on the importance of economics and business for environmental conservation and policies to work: (a) Policies will not pass legislation unless it is cost-effective and relatively inexpensive, (b) lobby opposition from business can be intense but will vary systematically depending on how the policies are designed, (c) environmental problems represent inefficiencies that can generate both social surplus and profit/business opportunities when the problems are addressed, and companies are experts in solving such inefficiencies, (d) environmental problems require new technology and profit-maximizing innovators often have the strongest incentives and abilities to develop new technologies. For all these reasons, proponents for environmental sustainability can and must embrace what economics and business can offer. The class draws on teaching material at the GSB.

The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano. Pre-requisites and finance context: The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate-level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class. (COURES IS THE SAME AS GSBGEN 693)