ENTFÄLLT: Behavioral Environmental Economics and Policy
Institution
Business, Economics, and Social Sciences
Department
Sozialökonomie
Teaching staff
N.N.
SDG-topic cluster
Climate change
Comments/contents
This seminar will look at the behavioral economics of environmental problems and climate change. The focus will be on empirical and experimental evidence, as well as on behaviorally inspired public policy instruments aiming to increase contributions to environmental or climate protection. The seminar will consist of lectures introducing students to the foundations of behavioral economics and how they are relevant to questions of environmental economics and policy. Methodologically, we will investigate how experiments generate scientific knowledge, as well as what their advantages and disadvantages are. Based on the topical and methodological foundations, the students will write a preregistration plan of an experiment they created, and perform a replication of an existing experiment in the classroom. Both will be group work.
Learning objectives
At the end of the seminar, students should know to critically access the role of behavioral economics for environmental economics and environmental policy. Furthermore, they should be aware of the merits and downsides of experimental evidence in order to evaluate theory and policies, as well as to pre-register and conduct a simple experiment. The students should be aware of how this knowledge is important in scientific, as well as non-academic jobs.
Didactic concept
The seminar will consist of input from the lecturer, as well as (supervised) group work. Students are expected to present their pre-registration, as well as conduct their designed replication experiment towards the end of the seminar.
Semester
WiSe 19/20
Center for a Sustainable University
Mittelweg 177
20148 Hamburg
www.nachhaltige.uni-hamburg.de