Environmental Economics

Writing Assignments

Paper Guidelines: The follow is a description of the minimum requirements for each paper.

Ø Length – the body of the paper should be no less than 8 pages and no more than 1 million pages.

Ø Margins – one inch on all sides.

Ø Line Spacing – double-spaced.

Ø Font size – 12

Ø Each paper should include a cover page, table of contents, and bibliography. These pages are not considered part of the body of the paper.

Ø Each paper should include subsections that are referred to in the table of contents.

Ø In addition to the textbook, you must cite at least three other references used when researching and writing your paper.

Ø All papers MUST be submitted both in print and electronically. Your electronic paper will be submitted to plagiarism search engines to assure that

1. The entire work is based largely on your own writings.

2. Citations, where necessary, are made correctly.

Anticipated length of each paper is 10 – 20 pages in length. Although I am not looking for a specific page count, typically student’s papers have averaged 10 – 20 page (averaging 15 pages) when they fully develop all of the topics of discussion.

Paper 1 --Theory Section

In this section you should discuss, at minimum, the items listed below. A wider discuss is encouraged.

1. Discuss the problem you have chosen to write on. In your discussion you need to include a description of the general concept, the potential problems for society from this problem, and the likely reasons why these problems exist. Where possible, you should include a scientific explanation, with appropriate citations, of the source of the problem For example, if you topic is global warming, then you would include a scientific explanation of the physics of global warming stated in laymen’s terms.

2. Describe the concept of allocative efficiency and how this is impacted by the existence of externalities. Write a complete section on allocative efficiency explaining the theory and how the issue that you are considering affects the allocative efficiency in a market.

3. Discuss the concept of externalities and any externalities that exist in your chosen area of research.

Policy Section

In this section you are going to present policy recommendations concerning developing solutions to your chosen problem.

1. Building on parts 1 - 3 above, develop policy recommendations. Simply stating the recommendation is insufficient but you must give details on how the policy will be implemented. For example, if you want to encourage the use of solar power, you must give details on how policy should be implemented so that solar power is encouraged.