Ecological Economics
Winter Semester 2026/27
📑 The course in brief
The course covers a wide range of interactions between the environment and socio-economic development. Students are introduced to various methods for analyzing economic impacts on the environment, the importance of the environment for economic activities, and the role of social institutions within the context of economy–environment relationships. In this setting, students learn about different policy tools that can address (undesired) external effects of economic activities on the environment and how to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental regulations from an economic perspective.
Focus:
- Analyze the interactions between the environment and socio-economic development
- Learn methods for assessing economic impacts on the environment and the environment’s importance for economic activity
- Understand and evaluate environmental policy tools — conventional and non-conventional — from an economic perspective
How:
- The course is taught as a seminar with lectures, interactive elements, and group work.
- Over the semester, students work on one particular country or region case study, which they present as a poster during a poster conference at the end of the semester (see the examination page).
- It is offered jointly for the MA “Sustainable Energy” and the MA “International Management Studies” programs.
Prerequisites:
- There are no formal prerequisites. A basic familiarity with introductory economics is helpful.
🎯 Learning Objectives
Expertise:
- Understand the core concepts and analytical perspective of ecological economics
- Explain how different notions of ‘economic development’ relate to the question of ecological sustainability
- Discuss the relevance of trade-offs between social and environmental goals
- Understand how economic activities and the resulting ecological stressors are globally interrelated
Methodological Competence:
- Work with data on socio-economic development and environmental pressures
- Account for environmental stressors at the global level, distinguishing production- and consumption-based perspectives
- Evaluate environmental policy instruments and their underlying assumptions
Social and Personal Skills:
- Conduct and present a country-level analysis as part of a group
- Be able to delineate the assumptions on which your own assessments, and those on others depend when it comes to the discussion of social and environmental challenges
- Take well-founded positions in current debates (e.g. growth vs. degrowth)