SDG Detail

ECON8017 - Ecological Economics

None

Project description

This unit provides an introduction to ecological economics - a trans-disciplinary approach to the application of economics to issues of environmental management, development and human welfare, stressing the complex nature of the ecosystem within which economic activity is embedded and the crucial constraints imposed on the scale of human economic activity. Topics covered include sustainability and sustainable development, limits to economic growth, the definition and measurement of welfare and economic progress, and the development of policy for a closed and rapidly-filling world. The unit will be applied in focus, with significant use of case studies and an individual applied research component.

Year 2022

Location Australia

Organization Macquarie University

Project aims

Project outcome

1. Apply advanced terminology and concepts associated with the analyses of environmental issues from an ecological economics perspective. 2. Evaluate ecological aspects of environmental problems, including key stakeholders and important incentive effects, and the role of ecological constraints. 3. Critically analyse the major theoretical approaches to the ecological analysis of environmental issues, the assumptions on which they are based and their implications regarding the effects of changes in key parameters. 4. Assess and compare policy alternatives to address issues of environmental sustainability from the perspective of ecological economics.