The most interesting issues in environmental and resource economics have an explicit temporal dimension, since variables of interest such as pollutants, greenhouse gases, biomass of biological resources, or the stocks of fossil fuels accumulate in the ambient environment or are depleted through human actions and natural processes.The purpose of these lectures is to present the mathematical tools for analyzing environmental and resource management issues in a dynamic set-up.The lectures include a brief description of differential equations and then move on to describe methods of optimal control, dynamic programing, and differential games. The final chapters cover two novel topics: (1) environmental issues characterized by deep uncertainty, and aversion to ambiguity using robust control methods and formulations of precautionary policies; and (2) the study of pollution/resource management in space and time when the environmental variables evolve in time and diffuse in space.The lectures are a valuable tool for advanced graduate students in environmental and resource economics who are studying dynamic problems.

That mistakes are made is clear. What is meant by that is not. Measuring whatever might be meant and scientifically studying it is therefore even more challenging.These lectures introduce an interdisciplinary science of mistakes to cut the Gordian knot. The key building blocks are model constructs drawn from the economic tradition, methods of measurement drawn from the psychometric tradition, and analytic methods drawn from economic theory.

People pursue their own interests, whatever those interests might be. Some people have interests that are narrow and selfish, while others have interests that are broad and altruistic. The idea that people are self-interested underpins all of economic analysis and raises two fundamental questions: 1. How do people choose the actions they think will further their own interests? 2. Can the potentially conflicting interests of different people be made to 'mesh' in some sort of socio-economic equilibrium? This book is devoted to a detailed study of the first question. Its Companion Volume (Economy-Wide Microeconomics: Equilibrium, Optimality, Applications and Tests) makes a detailed study of the second question.Following some foundational remarks, this book studies the Arrow-Debreu theory of consumer choice. That theory supposes people choose so as to maximize a complete, continuous, transitive, and reflexive binary preference relation over a non-empty and compact choice set. The book then studies numerous refinements, generalizations and extensions of each of these restrictions — up to and including recent work on Behavioral theories of choice and choice behaviour when preferences are intransitive/incomplete/discontinuous. Also considered is choice behaviour in environments that are not necessarily compact. A study is also made of intertemporal choice and choice under uncertainty. The study of Arrow-Debreu choice theory and its extensions are presented from the Primal, Dual, and Revealed Preference points of view.Consumers are not the only agents in the economy, as Producers are present as well. Beginning with a study of the Arrow-Debreu idea that producers choose from a convex production set so as to maximize profit, the book considers extensions and generalizations of this framework, particularly to non-convex environments. The study is presented from the Primal and Dual points of view.The final chapter in the book provides a link to its Companion Volume. The Chapter indicates how the theories of consumer and producer choice studied here help inform answers of the second question posed above.Resources are available to instructors who adopt this book. More details at www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12789-sm

This book presents the major themes of the economic literature on natural resources and the environment. It is designed to bring the reader, in part with the aid of a unified model of optimal resource use, to the frontiers of the discipline, using only elementary mathematical models. Features special to exhaustible and renewable resources, including the problems posed by market imperfections, are treated as extensions of the basic model. The theoretical discussion is enriched with examples and applications, including a systematic investigation of the behaviour of resource reserves, costs, prices, and substitution possibilities. Substantial attention to environmental, as well as extractive, resources is a distinctive aspect of this book. The author describes methods of estimating the environmental costs of resource development and other projects, and presents some key empirical findings. Policy instruments to protect the environment, such as taxes, subsidies, marketable permits, and direct controls, are carefully analysed from a welfare-theoretic point of view.

Climate change (CC) is currently an unquestionable phenomenon. If not stopped, it will be catastrophic for life on earth. Scientific evidence shows that human activities are the primary driver of CC tendencies since the industrial times. In this book, we present the relationship between development and CC, with special reference to agriculture, the rural sector, and policies aimed to promote sustainable development. We also give special attention to the situation in low- and medium-income countries particularly rural households and small farmers in these countries.The study of agriculture, CC, and sustainability requires consideration of natural resources and their uses (land, freshwater, forests, etc.), as well as the rural sector since land for agricultural production often expands at the expense of forests. In addition, the use of water for agricultural production affects the availability of this resource for other uses in the urban, industrial, and service sectors. Consequently, sustainable agricultural development under CC requires an interdisciplinary or at least a multidisciplinary approach. In this book, we do our best to deal with this challenge by focusing on issues and topics related to agriculture and its use of natural resources in the context of CC, but without ignoring the interrelations of these phenomena with further aspects of sustainability beyond agriculture.