Assistant Professor Andrew Butters
Energy Economics and Environmental Policy (G455) is a brand-new course that the Business Economics and Public Policy department is offering to help prepare students to think critically about energy and environmental issues and how they relate to businesses as well as public policy. Currently, this course will be able to serve as an elective for both the business analytics and sustainability co-majors.
“The department saw this as an opportunity to offer students an elective course that would be well suited for those interested in having a deeper understanding of environmental policy issues as they relate to both how they affect businesses and how businesses should be formulating their decision making as well as thinking about it from the public policy perspective,” says Professor Andrew Butters, who is working to roll out the course this fall.
The vision for G455 is to have students develop a foundational set of tools and frameworks to be able to evaluate a broad array of environmental issues with an emphasis on economics. This foundation will lean heavily on unpacking topics such as externalities, market power, public goods, taxes, and regulations. The course is designed so that each week is centered on furthering students’ understanding of the dimensions related to a currently debated issue in environmental policy such as implementing a carbon tax.
“In every case, the students are asked to get their hands dirty with the key data and evidence relevant for the issue,” says Butters.
Students will be given the conceptual frameworks to engage more deeply with the issues surrounding environmental policy.
“It’s not enough to simply know about public goods or externalities,” says Butters. “Students will also learn how to determine which framework or concept is the most relevant for any particular issue.”
Students will also become familiar with a range of different sources of data commonly used and incorporated into the business analytics of environmental policies. By way of exploring these datasets and using them to analyze the issue at hand, students will strengthen their empirical and analytical skillset.
Following the completion of this course, students will be able to outline the key issues in evaluating the merits of a range of policies, like, for instance, increasing/introducing a tax on energy such as a gasoline tax.
Students will also be familiar with several of the sources of good data to bring to bear in making that evaluation. This sort of application occurs routinely in government agencies, and consulting firms, as well as benefits public policy discussions.
“After taking the course students might have a deeper understanding of what goes into why the price of gasoline is $3.79/gallon, and what the variety of factors are that make the price of gasoline vary both over time and across states,” says Butters.
Energy Economics and Environmental Policy is one of three new courses that will come online next year. All will have a particular application of focus; this one is environmental policy. Another one will be focused on healthcare policy and analytics. The third is Digital Economics for Business. All three will hit the ground running this year as opportunities for students to choose an elective that they can tailor for what they envision their future careers to be.
Increasingly, universities are seeing the value in offering a course like this. Kelley was particularly well set up to offer it given its already extremely strong reputation and expertise associated with the business analytics and sustainability co-majors that feed into the Economic Consulting and Public Policy majors.
“Not only is this course supported by a strong foundation that exists around it, but the department was able to roll something like this out quickly because of the expertise here,” says Butters.
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