Energy and Resource Economics

The course is designed to provide an advanced overview of current concepts of energy economics and management, environmental and resource economics and policy. The course introduces energy, resource and environmental economics, as a sub-discipline of economics focusing on the inter-relationships between energy, environment, and the economy. It explains how the concept of economic efficiency in the allocation of scarce resources underpins cost-benefit analysis and decision making in energy, resource and environmental management. The course critically analyses features of energy markets such as: tendency towards market concentration; nationalisation vs international private operations; diversification of energy sources; hydrocarbon divestment and RES deployment; technological innovation and competition among countries, regions and alternative energy production technologies. The course also discusses the political economy of energy and climate change, energy sector developments and trends in South East Europe and the Mediterranean region, regional energy policies, regulations and initiatives like the European Green Deal, the European Climate Law and the EU taxonomy, the Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Agenda to 2030.  The course also stimulates science-driven discussion on the ongoing energy-food-geopolitical crises, that aggrivates the existing health-recession-inflation nexus of crises.