Abstract
An Environmental Economics Course in Name Only
When put to paper, a course titled Environmental Economics has certain implications for what topics will be covered. These implications depend on the instructor, the department, and especially the students. The expectations of students are rooted in their current understanding of environmental and resource issues, in addition to the respective scale and scope of their prior economics training. That is, students taking an environmental economics course have expectations about its pedagogical nature and composition. I know that as a student I surely did, and of the traditional type. I fully expected to apply mainstream economic tools to environmental and natural resource allocation issues, highlighting how some action was only worth taking if the benefits of that action outweighed its costs. Surely if we reduce pollution to some level beyond where the marginal costs of abatement are greater than the marginal benefits of abatement, we have done something wrong!
To a certain extent, this is how much of an environmental economics course can unfold, but it does not have to unfold this way; the unfolding heavily depends on the instructor's composition of the course. With the right mix of ingredients, such a course can bring multiple approaches, including this traditional approach, to the table. In fact, the range and depth of environmental issues demands a pluralistic approach with a focus on sustainability rooted in interdisciplinary tools and analysis. This is exactly how I approach teaching environmental economics, but it requires a careful combination of selected readings, frequent bursts of short writing, time spent listening, and participation in various discussions.
Developing the Curriculum
Basic Framework of the Course
As the syllabus implies (see Supplementary Appendix), the current iteration of this Environmental Economics course requires students to read, write, and listen a lot. With only a midterm and a final, students have weekly reading assignments to which they submit short, written reactions or reflections. This acts to commit (most) students to reading the material ahead of class and investing some time in thinking about the topics for the week and how they are related to previous topics we have covered. The students are also required to submit reactions or reflections on multiple episodes of two podcasts: How to Save a Planet and EconTalk (Blumberg, 2020-present; Roberts, 2006-present). We then discuss during class the readings and podcasts of the week.
Students are also required to have a blue exam book which I use to keep track of their progress on weekly in-class assignments, which are both qualitative and quantitative in nature depending on the topic at hand. There is also a group encyclopedia project and individual presentation component, both meant to ensure the students can hone their course knowledge to explain with precision a specific topic of their choice. In addition to these elements of the course and because I, too, only have a basic understanding of certain environmental issues and processes, I rely heavily on the expertise of others through a guest lecture series. The spring 2022 version of this course had 11 guest lecturers with a mix of individuals from academia and industry, and 10 of these were virtual. Despite the vast difficulties of the pandemic, I would not have been able to secure this many guest lecturers in the past, given the time and costs involved.
The students are also required to submit short reactions or reflections to each guest lecture experience. In the end, there is a lot of outside reading, writing, listening, and interdisciplinary variety, which form the foundation for the weekly discussion-based lectures and in-class assignments. Students seem to enjoy a good graphic or two, so I also supplement some of the weekly discussions with data and charts from Scientific American's Graphic Science.
Topical Coverage and Interdisciplinary Sequencing
To the extent that addressing environmental issues requires a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach, developing a curriculum rooted in pluralism requires careful planning and some trade-offs, and it begins with the course description. As noted in the Appendix, my course begins “with a basic overview of environmental and resource economics, externalities, law and economics, and social norms… .” (See Supplementary Appendix SA) To this end, I supplement my teaching with readings from Goodstein and Polasky's (2020) textbook, Economics and the Environment (9th edition). This section of the course focuses heavily on an introduction to some basic environmental issues such as air and water pollution, the traditional treatment of negative production and consumption externalities, and the role that efficiency plays in traditional economic analysis.
Noting the specific limitations of these tools and methods as partially highlighted by Fullerton and Stavins (1998) and in the rich critique of cost-benefit analysis offered by Kelman (1991), we then examine the ecological economics approach via Constanza (2020) and Venkatachalam (2007). With some careful consideration, it is straightforward to demonstrate to students how environmental and resources economists and ecological economists have historically had fundamentally different approaches to addressing environmental issues. A quick and dirty view is that the approach of the former group places the environment within the economy while the approach of the latter group places the economy within the environment. These foundationally different views can lead to very different treatments of environmental issues. In the end, I simply encourage my students to note the differences, be versed in their approaches, and if a label is important, consider using “economists who focus on environmental, resource, and ecological issues” as a more inclusive term and guiding pluralistic philosophy.
With this background in place, we then talk specifically about climate change. This poses a problem, however, because (like me) most of my students do not have a background in climate change science. Thankfully, however, Hsiang and Kopp (2018) have provided an excellent overview of some of the key elements of weather and climate science for the purposes of providing this background to economists (and others).
With this background in place, I introduce the students to some of the many studies covering the economic impacts of climate change, such as Auffhammer (2018), Tol (2018), and Kolstad and Moore (2020). While each of these does a great job highlighting some of the major economic impacts stemming from variations in weather patterns and the realities of climate change, they do not specifically address some of the key ethical and environmental justice dilemmas associated with climate change. To this end, I discuss the work of Nelson (2013) on the ethical and moral imperative of economists to participate in climate change discourse and research, and Daly and May's (2019) critical exposition of the links between environmental justice, human dignity, sustainability, and climate change. Given the connections made between the economy, environment, and human rights, I then introduce the students to a qualitative and quantitative synthesis of these topics through the application of a panel data analysis highlighting the relationships between constitutional environmental human rights and sustainable development outcomes (Jeffords, 2021).
It might now seem counterintuitive to jump back into the traditional treatment of negative environmental externalities, but it's at this point in the course where I find it extremely important to screen the traditional or orthodox approach through our newfound interdisciplinary goggles. To this end, we revisit the traditional treatment of pollution and negative externalities to see where and how the traditional Pigouvian, market-based, or regulatory approaches fall short. For example, using Metcalf (2009) as a baseline for the discussion of certain market-based methods coupled with Gillingham and Stock's (2018) broad discussion of the costs associated with various methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including cap-and-trade (Goulder, 2013), I consistently ask the students to reflect upon the ways in which these approaches can lead to unintended, potentially regressive consequences as well as ethical and moral quandaries and difficulties fulfilling human rights goals.
I take the same approach when covering the London congestion charge (Leape, 2006) and renewable electricity design (Borenstein, 2012; Holland et al., 2020). Without first setting the stage with the previous interdisciplinary unit of the course, this reflection process would be extremely difficult.
Armed with a basic pluralistic background, the course moves into a broad array of topics including: 1.) water issues and governance (Zetland, 2017, 2021); 2.) constitutional avenues to access water and sanitation (Jeffords, 2016); 3.) the relationship between pollution and dementia (Bishop et al., 2018); 4.) the disparate effects of climate change across race and gender boundaries (McGee et al. 2020; Nelson, 2015; Palmer, 2003; Sellers, 2020); 5.) heterodox Environmental Kuznets Curve issues (Jeffords & Minkler, 2016); 6.) environmental crimes (Billiet & Rousseau, 2014; Jeffords & Thompson, 2016) and ecocide (Stop Ecocide Foundation, 2021), environmental justice (Ash & Fetter, 2004; Banzhaf & Timmins, 2019; Daly & May 2019; Gellers & Jeffords, 2018); and 7.) corporate social responsibility (Ben-David et al., 2018). The last unit is particularly light on reading because I rely heavily on the guest lecture of a graduate of Villanova's School of Business—Susanne Salerno—to discuss the creation, organization, and goals of her consulting company, which focuses on corporate social responsibility, strategic philanthropy, and sustainability issues.
Notwithstanding the cumulative final exam, the course culminates with the group encyclopedia presentations and a broad discussion of how we can continue to work as economists who focus on environmental, resource, and ecological issues within an interdisciplinary, pluralistic framework. The college we call home is an institutional border, but issues in sustainability span all natural and human-made borders. We owe it to ourselves, future generations, flora and fauna, and the planet to do the best we can to ensure that the world is a safe, healthy place to live.
Student Reactions and Perception
Although it is difficult to say with certainty how the 27 students perceived this iteration of the course (ask me again after the semester ends!), I have some sense based on anecdotal discussions and submitted reaction or reflection papers. In general, and as noted, most of these students had little exposure to environmental issues from any economics perspective. While some had a background in environmental studies or science and fewer than five held primary majors in the natural sciences, most of the economics majors in the class had never applied economic tools and theories (of any variety) to environmental, resource, or ecological issues. The pluralistic approach to environmental issues in this course was a first for most students.
This lack of exposure, in my opinion, served the students well as they seemed to be more open-minded to the breadth of topics covered (even though this came at the cost of an inability to take a deep dive into very specific topics). Furthermore, based on the submitted reactions and reflections, the students seemed to really enjoy the guest lecture experiences (which gives me pause about my role in the course!). Although not scientifically founded evidence, this appears to support the notion that the students found the interdisciplinary, pluralistic approach meaningful and useful for increasing their knowledge. Of course, observing the counterfactual is an impossibility for this group of students (plus, I think it is limiting to teach environmental economics from the traditional perspective as I had in previous iterations).
Sustainability across the Curriculum
One of the key components of my graduate education was the interdisciplinary avenues through which I learned about environmental issues. At the University of Connecticut (UConn), I took courses in the economics department and the agricultural and resource economics department. Through UConn's Human Rights Institute, I joined a reading and research group of faculty and graduate students who were focusing on economic, social, cultural, and environmental human rights. Without this exposure to multiple perspectives, my understanding of local, regional, national, and global sustainability issues across space, place, time, cultures, and sociodemographic contexts would have suffered (and I likely would not have even known it was suffering). That is, without guidance or potentially having the foresight or intuition to seek these issues out on my own, I would have been unaware of how important it is to take a pluralistic view of environmental, resource, ecological, and sustainability issues. This current understanding forms the foundation for how I teach my courses related to the environment or sustainability.
At the same time, a key component of my education which I failed to take full advantage of was the availability of resources condensed into the college experience. From complimentary guest speaking events, participation in clubs, and the perhaps overwhelmingly large array of opportunities to experience on and off-campus events, to the ability to take courses across disciplines and colleges and pick up multiple majors and minors, I missed out. I was laser-focused on the discipline of economics from my undergraduate education all the way through graduate school at which point I took various steps to learn more about the additional topics I was passionate about. Because I think this defines my approach to teaching, research, and service, I share this experience with my students and attempt to point out how rich the opportunities are while they are attending college. For example, by avoiding indoctrination and simply highlighting many of the things going on around campus throughout the semester or calendar year, I encourage the students to participate in environmentally focused events both on and off-campus, and to diversify their course, tools, and degree portfolios where possible.
This is further supported by a broad array of sustainability-related activities happening across campus throughout the academic year. These events are often spearheaded by Villanova's Office of Sustainability through the campus sustainability manager and/or through the minor in sustainability studies housed in the Department of Geography and the Environment. Each of these events or activities, including my course and others across campus, are working to actively contribute to Villanova's Sustainability Plan and the creation of the Villanova Institute for Climate, Justice, and Sustainability. It is an important, time-intensive undertaking.
In the end the goal is to increase student knowledge and provide students with the tools, ability, and confidence to tackle problems of all sizes and scope. An interdisciplinary, pluralistic environmental economics course is difficult to create and requires an evolutionary approach to maintain a fresh, relevant syllabus. At the same time, I make a point to learn from my students based on their interests or their interpretation of issues in sustainability based on their respective backgrounds. After all, pluralism demands approaching topics from multiple points of view, not just through the filter in which I provide my take on pluralistic environmental economics.
References
Supplementary Material
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