DECO 22A14 - Environmental Economics and Sustainability in the Asia-Pacific

Environmental problems in Asia are not simply a less well-resourced version of the same problems in wealthy countries. The institutional landscape is different, enforcement capacity is more constrained, and the communities most exposed to environmental degradation are often those with the least political influence. Yet some of the most innovative approaches to environmental governance from community-based forest and fishery management in Indonesia and Vietnam to China’s carbon-trading experiments which have emerged precisely from this context. This course builds an economic framework for understanding how environmental policy actually works, or fails to work, across the Asia-Pacific region, with attention to the maritime and coastal dimensions that matter for a port campus and that connect to the Seas and Oceans Certificate offered at Le Havre. The course opens with the economic theory of externalities, public goods, and Elinor Ostrom’s work on common pool resources, then develops the main policy instruments: regulation, environmental taxes, tradable permits, and payments for ecosystem services. It applies these tools to contemporary questions including conservation incentives, the economics of fisheries, marine and coastal ecosystem services, the blue economy, and climate adaptation in vulnerable coastal communities, before closing with a structured debate on environmental regulation and student case presentations. Case material is drawn from Vietnam, Indonesia, China, and the Pacific, including the instructor’s own research on eco-labelling adoption and conservation-incentive programmes. The course is suitable for second- and third-year students who have completed first-year core economics; no prior environmental economics is assumed.

First-year core economics. No prior environmental economics is required; familiarity with basic microeconomics (supply and demand, marginal analysis) is helpful. The course contributes to the Seas and Oceans Certificate and is open to students in the Asia-Pacific minor.

Twelve two-hour seminar sessions combining short lectures, guided reading discussion, applied case analysis, a structured debate, and student presentations. Each session pairs an economic framework with an Asia-Pacific case; Sessions 8–10 are devoted to the economics of seas and oceans.

Continuous assessment (55%) and a final exam (45%). Continuous assessment comprises:

• Class participation and reading engagement 10%
• Structured debate, assessed in-class (Session 11) 20%
• Individual policy brief on an environmental or marine intervention (written, out of class): 25% Final written exam (in-class, 2 hours): 45%. At least two assessment types are used. Written work completed outside class accounts for no more than 30% of the final mark, and assessment is not based solely on group work.