ACE8015: ENVIRONMENTAL & RURAL
RESOURCE
ECONOMICS
(10 Credits)
(LAST UPDATE: 9th December, 2011)
NOTICES
TIMETABLE: SEMESTER 1: Fridays, 09.30 - 11.00, Agriculture Building,
3.02
FINAL Exam Timetable: Monday 23rd January, 0930
(Bedson Teaching Centre, 1.48)
Aims:
To provide students with limited economics training a basic
understanding
of economics with particular reference to the environment and rural
resources.
Objectives: By the end of this module, students should:
- understand the basic economic (market) mechanisms governing
income and
spending flows and signals to producers, consumers and owners of
resources
(including natural resources)
- understand the concepts of market failure and the principles of
government
intervention to correct these failures
- understand the principles of balancing costs with benefits, and
assessment
of socio-economic and political decisions about resource use
- The basic economic concepts of markets and the circular flow of
income
- general equilibrium and the climax state of free market economies
- market failures - externalities and public goods
- coping mechanisms and strategies, including cost-benefit
analysis;
discounting;
non-market valuations.
- case studies and examples.
Assessment & Appraisal
Subject to class agreement: the assessment procedures
for this course are:
- One Final formal University examination, January, (2 hrs.)
100%.
The examination will consist of three questions, of which
candidates
will be asked to answer one.
The final examination questions are currently as follows, and students
will be given an
opportunity to submit draft answers to these questions prior to the
formal examination for comment and
appraisal, rather than assessment purposes. If you consider that these
questions do not allow you to fully develop your understanding of this
course, please feel free to suggest alternatives.
Exam Questions:
1. You have been
commissioned to write a briefing paper for a new Chief Executive of a
Local Economic Partnership (LEP) on the major economic problems of
rural
development. The person you are writing this paper for is a trained
economist, but is not familiar with the specific problems of either
rural areas or of rural development. Outline the paper you would
prepare. [You may base the paper on a specific region, but you should
not spend much time or space describing the region, other than to
illustrate how the specific characteristics colour your analysis of the
major economic problems.]
2.
Sustainability is fashionable as the crucial concept for rural
development and resource management. Write a paper that outlines the
critical issues and problems associated with this concept, and
highlights the insights that the concept provides for practical
management and policy design.
3. Why might
government intervention be necessary to improve the management and use
of rural resources? How does economics help to understand these issues,
and what particular problems do you think arise from an economic
approach to the issues?
Two background papers which might illuminate your lecturer's approach
to economics are as follows:
"Where does Economics Fit in
the Social World" (2004) (Powerpoint
presentation here)
"A Conjecture
on the Nature
of Social Systems" (2008)
SYLLABUS:
- Introduction and
overview.
(1
week)
- Review of Basic
Economics (3
weeks)
- This is a potted version of those parts of an Economics
Principles
course
which are especially relevant to environmental resource management and
rural development.
- For an application of some basic economics to farming in the
Northern
Region
of the UK, read this working paper (a
longer
version of a published paper), which has a little repetition from the
"Role
of Markets in the Rural Economy" chapter, but also has a little more
detail
on the operation of markets in the face of government intervention.
- Please SEE HERE for MACROECONOMICS
Part 2 - the JigSaw put together.
- Note: see here
for an account
of the history of UK agriculture since WW2. (use your browser back
button to return here. See here for some notes on UK Membership of the Euro
- Market Failures:
Public Goods and Externalities (1 week)
- Coping Techniques and Strategies (2 weeks)
- Review of History
of
Farm Support
Policies and their analysis (Economic Welfare or
Cost/Benefit
Analysis)
- Sustainability.
- Rural
Development
(1
week) see also Rural
Information Network Briefings and link to "Rural Solutions"
- a private enterprise consultancy built on experience and practice.
- Examples
and Case Studies (2 weeks)
- Consolidation, Review & Revision (2
weeks)
Back to DRH Lecture site index