Energy Economics Course

My proposal for a course titled "Energy Economics" was approved by the College of Asia and the Pacific education committee. The course will have the number CRWF8017 and we plan to offer it for the first time in the second semester of 2012. CRWF courses are graduate courses offered by the Crawford School that have no additional prerequisites beyond those required for admission to study in one of

New Private College of the Humanities in the UK

An interesting development in the face of the tremendous rise in tuition fees at public universities in the UK: "The New College of the Humanities. This will be a private college that is part of the University of London. It will grant London degrees and use their library facilities etc. There is star founding faculty of fourteen professors including well-known names like Richard Dawkins, Partha

The ANU Energy Change Institute Launches Website

The Energy Change Institute at the ANU is launching its website. As you can see from the website, the Institute brings together researchers from many different areas across the ANU from artificial photosynthesis to energy economics and policy and from enhanced oil and gas extraction to solar photovoltaics. Several of my colleagues in the Crawford School and Research School of Economics are

If You Only Have 2 Hours to Teach Environmental Economics, What Would You Say?

All of us teaching Introductory Economics face this problem. This is what I'm going to say on Tuesday.

Global Trends in Carbon and Sulfur Emissions

I'm preparing a lecture on environmental economics for both my course "Economic Way of Thinking 1" at the Crawford School and as a guest lecture in an introductory economics course at the Treasury. I'm planning to open the lecture by presenting some global and regional trends, focusing on carbon and sulfur emissions. First the global trends using data from CDIAC and Steven Smith:and then data by

NOAA State of the Climate 2009

I've been looking for a "state of the world" article for the class I will be teaching in Lund. Today, NOAA released their annual report on the state of the climate. That is an excellent example of the kind of thing I'm looking for. Now, if I could cover energy trends, pollutants, biodiversity etc. as well as the climate in one article that would be great. It's pretty easy to find reports on such

Suggest an Article for My Students

They'll only be my students for one guest lecture. They are students in a business masters who are taking an environmental economics class. The textbook for the class is undergrad level and a bit old (they cover the whole book in 3 weeks). I need an overview article about global trends in energy, pollution, climate change, biodiversity, the more the merrier over the last decade at least to

UCL Australia

University College London has opened a program in Australia in collaboration with oil and gas company Santos. They are offering interdisciplinary graduate certificate, graduate diploma, masters (2 years including a 9 month internship), and PhD programs. So far, they have 4 academic staff in Australia with the head of the program, Prof. Tony Owen, recruited from Curtin University of Technology (

Public Policy Precinct at ANU

Lots of public policy initiatives are planned at ANU in which the Crawford School looks to play a major role:ANU Media ReleaseSATURDAY 8 MAY 2010ANU TO ESTABLISH $111.7 million PUBLIC POLICY PRECINCTThe Australian National University (ANU) will play a lead role inboosting Australia's expertise through enhanced teaching and research inpublic policy and will establish a new Australian National

Do Liberal Arts Programs Work?

Can anyone point me to research on the effectiveness of the liberal arts model of education popular in US and Chinese universities compared to the more specialized approach prevalent in Europe and Australia? Which results in better educated citizens? This is particularly relevant with the advent of the "Melbourne Model". Is this a good compromise between the various models?

Econometrics and Economics

I went to two presentations at ANU recently by well-known American economists" Joshua Angrist and Frank Lichtenberg. Angrist presented work on the charter school in Lynn, MA. The presentation was clear and I thought quite impressive and convincing in showing a major impact of attending the school on students' performance, at least in mathematics. Lichtenberg showed the effect of diagnostic

U.S. Survey of Earned Doctorates

If you are a statistics (in sense of data) junkie, there is plenty of fascinating info in the NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates. Did you know for instance that only 7% of Saudis want to stay in the US after getting a PhD whereas 89% of Iranians do?Total numbers of doctorates in the US continue to grow - mainly in the sciences and in particular life sciences and engineering. There is moderate

John Cochrane's Tips

John Cochrane's writing tips for PhD students. He also has some good tips on presentations in the paper. But I can't see how you can go directly to your results if people don't yet know what you are trying to do, what your question is and what your model is etc.

What Do Australian High School Economics Students Need to Know?

Peter Martin links to the most recent HSC and VCE exams in economics. HSC is the high school diploma level exam in New South Wales. Looking through it, it is largely comparable to the college level Intro Economics course I taught in the US with the following differences:1. It's almost entirely macro-economics instead of a 50:50 balance of micro and macro2. There's a very strong emphasis on

There are More Chinese Students in Australia than in the U.S.

It is hard to believe that there are 50% more Chinese students in Australia than in the U.S. which has 14 times the population of Australia. Digging around on the web I found plenty of other articles from different sources corroborating the 130,000 number.

Take an Economics Test

U.S. High School "Advanced Placement Economics Test courtesy of the New York Times. I got 18/18 but for a couple of questions that was because I knew all the other answers had to be wrong rather than I knew the one I selected was right. It's all macro-economics questions.