Course Catalogue

The objective of this course is to introduce the students to both theoretical concepts and empirical tools used in the economic analysis of environmental policies. The course covers a broad range of current topics in environmental, energy, and climate policy. The basic structure of this course will involve presentation and discussion of papers that should be read in advance.

Selected topics:
Environmental regulation: Theoretical concepts
Environmental regulation and industrial performance
Estimating impacts of pollution: applications to health and climate change
Political economy of environmental regulation

Thorough understanding of the key topics, ability to critically evaluate empirical research in environmental economics that employs both structural and reduced-form econometric methods. Ability to apply state-of-the-art research methods and presentation skills.
To get credit, students will present one of the papers on the reading list (or closely related to those). Following the period of in-classroom teaching, students will have several weeks to work on a proposal for a research project that can be pursued as part of their dissertation research. Both the presentation and the written proposal will be graded.

Deadline for applications: 5 July 2026

Schedule:
• Opening session (Online): 3 August 10:15-11:45 and 13:30-15:00
• On-campus sessions: 1-3 September 08:30-10:00, 10:30-12:00 and 15:00-16:30 and 4 September 08:30-10:00, 10:30-12:00

Lecturer: Prof. Ulrich Wagner, PhD
Professor Ulrich Wagner, PhD is a Research Associate at the ZEW. He cooperates closely with the research unit “Environmental and Climate Economics”. He is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim. He received his doctoral degree in 2006 from Yale University and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Before joining the University of Mannheim in 2015, he worked as an Associate Professor of Economics at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid.