Spring 2026

Below are links to articles on the reading list that are available on-line through the Syracuse University library. The articles are organized by date and subject, as on the syllabus. For articles unavailable at the library, the articles are available through the course in Blackboard. A link to Blackboard is provided. Note that this is not a complete syllabus, as it does not include chapters in the textbook or optional reading.

Because these articles are made available through the SU library, they are only available to SU students. If you are using a computer on campus, the links will take you directly to the article. If you are off-campus, you will be taken to a sign-in page so that you can access library materials remotely.

January 12 – What is Environmental Economics?
Fullerton, Don and Robert N. Stavins (1998) “How Economists See the Environment,” Nature, 395, 433-434.

Joselow, Maxine and Catrin Einhorn, “Proposals Aim to Weaken Endangered Species Act,” The New York Times, November 23, 2025, A21.

DePillis, Lydia, “Industries Balk at Cost of Cleaner Air,” The New York Times, November 14, 2023, B1, B4.

January 14 – Market Failures
Ostrom, Elinor (2009), “A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems,” Science, 325(5939), 419-422.

Davenport, Coral, “What if Farmers Were Taxed on Water? In California, Some Are,” The New York Times, January 4, 2024, A1, A13.

Turkewitz, Julie, “This Land Is Your Land, and Yours, and Yours ….,” The New York Times, September 29, 2017, A10.

“A rising tide,” The Economist, September 20, 2008, pp. 97-98.

“Firefall and footfall,” The Economist, February 26, 2022.

January 21 – Modeling Pollution
Eder, Steve, “One Apple Orchard. 5,000 Government Rules,” The New York Times, December 28, 2017, A1.

Wald, Matthew L., “Fossil Fuels’ Hidden Cost Is in Billions, Study Says,” The New York Times, October 20, 2009, p. A16.

“Giving up carbs,” The Economist, February 27, 2021, 60-61.

“We were expecting you,” The Economist, September 4, 2021, 73.

January 26 – Should the Government Intervene?
Fowlie, Meredith, “Only Who Should Prevent Forest Fires?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, November 13, 2018.

Breeden, Aurelien, “Rooster’s Noise Lawsuit a Win for France’s Barnyard Bellowers,” The New York Times, January 25, 2021, A11.

Fuller, Thomas and Ivan Penn, “No Fires Yet, But California Is Paying Now,” The New York Times, July 22, 2019, A1, A13.

“Building in Wildland-Urban Interface Areas Boosts Wildfire Costs,”NBER Digest, March 2020.

January 28 – Command and Control Policies for the Environment
Aldy, Joseph E. and William A. Pizer (2016), “Alternative Metrics for Comparing Domestic Climate Change Mitigation Efforts and the Emerging International Climate Policy Architecture,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 10(1), 3-24.

Sallee, James, “What is a Car?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, April 10, 2023.

Lipton, Eric, “E.P.A. Offers Lifeline to the dirtiest Coal Plants,” The New York Times, August 25, 2018, A1.

“Marching bans,” The Economist, October 3, 2020, 64.

February 2 & 4 – Emissions Fees and Subsidies
Davis, Lucas, ““How Do We Pump Up the Impact of Heat Pump Subsidies?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, September 3, 2024.

Davis, Lucas, “More Good News for EV Buyers” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, October 16, 2023.

Fowlie, Meredith and Baylis, Patrick, “Oh, Canada” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, October 21, 2024.

Gelles, David, “Subsidizing Oil and Gas, but Not Clean Energy”The New York Times, October 22, 2025, A2.

Tankersley, Jim, “When to Buy Electric Car? Rules Just Got Trickier.”The New York Times, August 19, 2022, B6.

“The perfect carbon price,” The Economist, June 3, 2023, 62.

February 9 & 11 – Tradable Permits
Davis, Lucas, “The Case for Trading Fuel Economy Compliance Credits” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, January 5, 2026..

Fowlie, Meredith, “Carbon Offsets Get a Green Light in Glasgow”, Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, November 22, 2021..

Schmalensee, Richard and Robert Stavins (2017), “Lessons Learned from Three Decades of Experience with Cap-and-Trade,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 11(1), 59-79.

Plumer, Brad, “White House Offers Tools to Assess Carbon Offsets,” The New York Times, May 29, 2024, B4.

“Cap and fade,” The Economist, June 7, 2025, 24-25.

“Cleaning up,” The Economist, February 27, 2021, 57.

“Selling a new CORSIA,” The Economist, July 4, 2020, 57-58.

“Up in the air,”The Economist, May 28, 2022, 64-65.

February 16 – Policy Instrument Choice: The Role of Uncertainty
Pindyck, Robert S. (2007), “Uncertainty in Environmental Economics,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1(1), 45-65.

Borenstein, Severin, “Understanding and Refining Emissions Markets”, Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, July 6, 2020.

February 18 – Policy Instrument Choice: Water
Fisher-Vanden, Karen and Sheila Olmstead (2013), “Moving Pollution Trading from Air to Water: Potential, Problems, and Prognosis,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(1), 147-172.

Barringer, Felicity, “A Plan to Curb Farm-to-Watershed Pollution of Chesapeake Bay,” The New York Times, April 13, 2007, p. A10.

Friedman, Lisa, “EPA Says ‘Forever Chemicals’ Must Be Removed From Tap Water,” The New York Times, April 10, 2024, A10.

Tabuchi, Hiroko, Lisa, “E.P.A. Rethinks Chemicals in Drinking Water,” The New York Times, May 16, 2025, A14.

February 23 – Federalism and Environmental Policy
“Federalism and Environmental Protection: Case Studies for Drinking Water and Ground-Level Ozone,” Congressional Budget Office, November 1997 (read chapter 1 only).

Shobe, William M. and Dallas Burtraw (2012), “Rethinking Environmental Federalism in a Warming World,” Climate Change Economics, 3(4).

Friedman, Lisa, “Trump Issues Threat to Climate Policies Set by States,” New York Times, April 11, 2025, A13.

Friedman, Lisa, “Trump Strategy Endangers Shift to Electric Cars,” New York Times, February 27, 2025, A1.

Howard, Hilary, “Hochul, Citing Practicality, Goes Slow on Climate Measures,” The New York Times, December 12, 2025, A16.

Plumer, Brad and Nadja Popovich, “Poor Americans Exposed to Unsafe Water, Study Shows,” The New York Times, February 13, 2018, A10.

Roy, Nicholas and Geoffroy Dolphin, “State Carbon Prices are Here to Stay,” Resources, November 4, 2025.

Sallee, James. “Waving Goodbye to the California Waiver?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, September 23, 2019.

Tabuchi, Hiroko, “Virginians Push Back On Maryland And Sludge,” The New York Times, May 12, 2025, A17.

February 25 & March 2 – Behavioral Economics and Policy: Energy Efficiency
Carlsson, Fredrik, Christina Gravert, Olof Johansson-Stenman, and Verenza Kurz (2021), “The Use of Nudges as Environmental Policy Instruments,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 15(2), 216-237.

Gillingham, Kenneth and Karen Palmer (2014), “Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap: Policy Insights from Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 8(1), 18-38.

Davis, Lucas, “Here Come the Lumens,” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, March 27, 2023.

Jack, Kelsey, “Do Monthly Bills Undermine the Impact of Carbon Pricing?” Our 2 Cents Blog, July 10, 2019.

Wolfram, Catherine. “Closing the Energy Efficiency Gap for Low-Income Households”, Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, October 21, 2019.

“Rocked by DeepSeek” The Economist, February 1, 2025, 63.

March 2 & 4 – Distributional Effects of Environmental Policies
Banzhaf, Spencer, Lala Ma, and Christopher Timmins (2019), “Environmental Justice: The Economics of Race, Place, and Pollution,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 185-208.

Weber, Jeremy G. (2020), “How Should We Think about Environmental Policy and Jobs? An Analogy with Trade Policy and an Illustration from U.S. Coal Mining,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 14(1), 44-66.

Fowlie, Meredith, “Carbon Pricing, Environmental Justice, Compromise” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, August 7, 2023.

Popp, David, “Government investments can smooth worker transitions in a green economy, but must be used carefully,” Smart Prosperity Institute Guest Blog, June 25, 2020.

Scheiber, Noam, “A Sticking Point in Climate Plan,” The New York Times, December 13, 2021, B1.

Zhong, Raymond and Popovich, Nadja, “How Dangerous Air Reflects Racist Policy From 8 Decades Ago,” The New York Times, March 11, 2022, A14.

March 16 – Revealed Preference Techniques
“Analyzing Benefits,” Chapter 7 in U.S. EPA. (2024), Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses (3rd edition). Report number EPA-240-R-24-001. Washington, DC, sec. 7.1-7.3.1.

Auffhammer, Maximilian. “To See Or Not To See,” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, March 25, 2024..

Colmer, Jonathan (2020), “What is the meaning of (statistical) life? Benefit-cost analysis in the time of COVID-19,” Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36: S56-S63.

March 18 – Stated Preference Techniques
“Analyzing Benefits,” Chapter 7 in U.S. EPA. (2024), Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses (3rd edition). Report number EPA-240-R-24-001. Washington, DC, sec. 7.3.2.

Bishop, Richard C. et al. (2017) “Putting a Value on injuries to natural assets: The BP oil spill,” Science 356, 253-254.

March 23 – Estimating Benefits and Costs
“Analyzing Benefits,” Chapter 7 in U.S. EPA. (2024), Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses (3rd edition). Report number EPA-240-R-24-001. Washington, DC, sec. 7.4-7.5.

Harrington, Winston, Richard D. Morgenstern, and Peter Nelson (2000), “On the Accuracy of Regulatory Cost Estimates,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,, 19(2), 297-322.

Levinson, Arik (2018), “Mercury Air Toxics Standards: Co-Benefits and the Courts in U.S. Cost-Benefit Analysis,” Case Studies in the Environment, 1-10.

Fowlie, Meredith, “What Just Happened to the Mercury Rule?” Energy Institute at Hass blog, April 20, 2020.

Frakt, Austin “Pollution Takes Long-Term Economic Toll,” The New York Times, November 28, 2018, A15.

“The rule of more,” The Economist, February 18, 2012, 77.

March 25 & 30 – Making Use of Value Measures – Benefit-Cost Analysis
Prest, Brian, “Discounting 101” Resources for the Future, January 6, 2020.

Prest, Brian C., William A. Pizer, and Richard G. Newell (2021), “Improving Discounting in the Social Cost of Carbon,” Resources 208: 12-15.

Friedman, Lisa, “What’s the Cost to Society of Pollution? Trump Says Zero.” The New York Times (online), May 10, 2025.

Tankersley, Jim, “Regulators Get New Set of Priorities,” The New York Times, November 10, 2023, B1, B5.

“Is RFK junior right to say America allows more toxins than the EU?,” The Economist, November 22, 2024 (online).

“The uncertainty of genius,” The Economist, September 7, 2019, 68.

“Unknown unknowns,” The Economist, July 15, 2023, 62.

April 2 – Energy Resources
Perloff, Jeffrey M., “Exhaustible Resources,” Microeconomics: Fourth Edition, pp. 562-568. available in Blackboard

Gross, Samantha, “Why are fossil fuels so hard to quit?” Brookings Essay, June 2020.

Varian, Hal R., “The Rapidly Changing Signs at the Gas Station Show Markets at Work,” The New York Times, August 24, 2006, p. C3.

“The bottom of the barrel,” The Economist, July 18, 2020, 51-52.

“Not-so-slow burn” The Economist, May 23, 2020, 49-50.

“Oil kings,” The Economist, October 19, 2024, S10-S11.

April 6 – Electricity Markets
Borenstein, Severin, “What Will Data Centers Do To Your Electric Bill?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, September 29, 2025.

Davis, Lucas W., Catherine Hausman, and Nancy L. Rose (2023), “Transmission Impossible? Prospects for Decarbonizing the US Grid,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 37(4), 155-180.

Osaka, Shannon, “The U.S. may have a secret weapon against rising electricity prices,” The Washington Post (Online), December 25, 2025.

Patterson, Scott, “States See Federal Power Grab in AI Data-Center Clash,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2025, A3.

Plumer, Brad, “U.S. Solar Goal Stalled by Wait on Creaky Grid,” The New York Times, February 24, 2023, A1, A15.

Plumer, Brad, Harry Stevens and Rebecca F. Elliot, “Electric Bills are Rising Across the U.S.,” The New York Times, November 8, 2025, B1. (for NY Times subscribers, this link includes detailed graphics not in the ProQuest version.)

Plumer, Brad and Nadja Popovich, “Shipping-Container-Size Batteries are Revamping U.S. Energy,” The New York Times, May 10, 2024, A1, A13.

“Green dollars,” The Economist, September 23, 2023, 66.

“Solar eclipsed,” The Economist, December 22, 2018, 86-88.

April 8 – Energy Technology Policy
Popp, David, (2019) “Promoting Clean Energy Innovation,” ifoDICE Report, 17(4), 30-35.

Wolfram, Catherine, “What Drove Solar PV Price Reductions?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, September 9, 2019.

Ewing, Jack, “Truck Makers Face Choice: Go Battery or Hydrogen?” The New York Times, April 12, 2022, B1.

Halper, Evan, “Creating clean hydrogen power is hard. Biden’s new subsidies show why,” The Washington Post, January 3, 2025.

Nelson, Eshe and Adam Satariano, “Energy Fixes Exist. But They Need Money,” The New York Times, April 19, 2022, B1.

Morenne, Benoît, “Occidental’s Green Bet to Keep Pumping Oil,” The Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2023, A1.

Porter, Eduardo, “Behind Drop in Oil Prices, A Federal Role,” The New York Times, January 21, 2015, B1, B9.

“Cell-side analysis,” The Economist, August 20, 2022, 57-59.

April 13 – Growth and the Environment
“An Analytical Framework for Inclusive Green Growth,” chapter 1 in Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012.

Heal, Geoffrey, “Reflections—Defining and Measuring Sustainability,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Winter 2012, 6(1), 147-163.

“Capital pains,” The Economist, July 18, 2020, 73.

“The natural question,” The Economist, February 6, 2021, 62.

“Sovereign wealth, sovereign whims,” The Economist, June 15, 2019, 40.

“Wrangling over white gold,” The Economist, May 6, 2023, 25.

April 15 – Environmental Issues in Developing and Emerging Economies
Jayachandra, Seema (2021), “How Economic Development Influences the Environment,” NBER Working Paper #29191.

Laval, Shola, “As Economies Get Bigger, Air Pollution Falls in Africa,” The New York Times, February 9, 2021, A9.

“A day late and a dollar short,” The Economist, November 25, 2023, 64-65.

“Development v climate,” The Economist, July 1, 2023, 54.

“Festival of darkness,” The Economist, November 9, 2019.

“Keeping the home fires burning,” The Economist, May 3, 2025, 36.

“Powering Africa,” The Economist, November 5, 2022, 43-45.

“Purchasing power,” The Economist, December 8, 2025, 42-43.

April 20 – Policies to Promote Environmental Protection in Developing Countries
Barbier, Edward B. and Joanne C. Burgess (2023), “Economics of Nature-Based Solutions for Mitigating Climate Change,” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 19(2), 155-174.

Emont, Jon, “New Limits Could Cut Rainforest Carbon Offsets,” The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2022, B11..

“Africa’s carbon boom,” The Economist, December 2, 2023, 40-42.

“This gigantic green world,” The Economist, October 25, 2025, 27-29.

April 20 & 22 – Trade and the Environment
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Point/Counterpoint on Tariffs and Clean Energy:

Levinson, Arik (2025), “Tariffs on clean-energy technology,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,, 44(1):316-322.

Pancotti, Elizabeth and Todd Tucker (2025), “Tariffs are a necessary backstop of the clean energy transition,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,, 44(1):323-328.

Levinson, Arik (2025), “Tariffs are an obstacle to the clean-energy technology,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,, 44(1):329-331

Pancotti, Elizabeth and Todd Tucker (2025), “Credible climate policy must account for political and economic realities,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,, 44(1):332-334.

Copeland, Brian R., Joseph S. Shapiro, and M. Scott Taylor (2021), “Globalization and the Environment,” NBER Working Paper #28797 (sections 1, 4-4.1.2, 4.2, and 5 required. The remaining sections are optional.)

Campbell, Erin, Anne McDarrris and William Pizer, “Border Carbon Adjustments 101,” Resources for the Future Explainer Series, November 10, 2021.

Elkerbout, Milan, Katarina Nhrkorn, and William Pizer, “Climate and Trade in a World of Resurgent Industrial Policy,” Resources Magazine, Fall 2024.

Fowlie, Merideth, “Tariff Trial and Error in the Solar Energy Sector” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, August 4, 2025.

“C-BAM,” The Economist, October 12, 2024, 58-59.

“Making trade greener,” The Economist, October 9, 2021, S10-S11.

“China’s global power play,” The Economist, November 8, 2025, 10.

“Out of sight,” The Economist, October 19. 2019, 72-73.

“Protectionist turns,” The Economist, January 14, 2023, 63-65.

“Unintended consequences,” The Economist, July 6, 2024, 38-39.

April 27 – The Political Economy of Environmental Policy
Meckling, Jonas et al. (2015), “Winning coalitions for climate policy,” Science, 349(6253), 1170-1171.

Goodman, J. David, Brad Plumer, and Ivan Penn, “As Renewable Energy Booms in West, Republicans Push Natural Gas,” The New York Times, May 15, 2025, A21.

“Not green but clean,” The Economist, January 14, 2023, 62.

“The best is the enemy of the green,” The Economist, December 5, 2015, 75.

“Welcome to the green swamp,” The Economist, April 15, 2023, 53-54.