Course overview
This course examines the interface between human economic activities and contemporary environmental issues. The course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to explore a variety of alternative pathways to green economies. The course critically analyses the mainstream economic way of thinking from philosophical and ethical perspectives. The course introduces common concepts and principles associated with alternative economies including circular economy, sharing economy, and localised economy as pathways to green economy.
- Market Economy And Market Failure
- Responses To Market Failure
- Pathways To A Green Economy
Course learning outcomes
- Develop a sound understanding of the basic economic concepts and principles, such as opportunity costs, marginal analysis and prisoner’s dilemmas, and their relevance to human-induced contemporary environmental problems
- Examine the complex meaning of the utilitarian doctrine, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’
- Develop an understanding of public disputation over the choice of economic policy instruments in response to market failure
- Examine the economic dimension of sustainability using the concept of GDP (gross domestic product) and unemployment
- Examine the limitations associated with GDP measurement and understand various indices of human wellbeing
- Contrast ecological and technological views of sustainability, making use of the conceptual framework of the I=PAT (Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology) equation