Course description
Structure and Content
Students take four taught modules in the autumn, from September to December, and four more taught modules in the spring, from February to May. Then students write a dissertation in the summer, from June to August. In the Autumn Semester all students take the following modules:
Financial Economics: financial instruments and how they are traded; the key tools used by financial economists; the major topics in financial economics including portfolio theory, diversification and mean variance analysis; asset-pricing models, efficient market hypothesis, and market anomalies; the pricing of bonds, stocks, and other financial instruments.
Environmental Economics: the application of economic theory and methodologies to the better understanding of environmental problems and improving the design of environmental policy.
Risk Assessment: the key concepts of the analysis of risk and uncertainty; how these concepts are used in the design of financial products; and how one might design financial products to deal with environmental risks, including climate variability and natural disasters.
Quantitative Methods in Finance: the statistical and computing skills which are necessary to understand fully and perform modern financial analysis.
In the Spring Semester all students take the following modules:
Environmental Finance: an introduction to the field of environmental finance, encompassing all instruments designed to transfer environmental risk and to generate environmental quality.
Global Environmental Governance and Strategic Interaction: discussion of environmental problems with a global dimension; analysis and evaluation of international environmental agreements in terms of their goals, their design, their implementation and the role of international institutions; an introduction to the analysis of the strategic interaction between various national and international interest groups, policymakers and governmental bodies and its global impact.
Energy Markets: the function of the major markets for energy: oil, coal, natural gas, electric power, and alternative/renewable energy in a national and international context; the technological structure and parameters of energy supply and use; the principal drivers of supply and demand for energy; forecasting supply or demand for energy; the environmental issues related to energy use and consumption; the effect on energy markets of national and international environmental policy.
Seminar on Environmental Finance and Global Governance: This will include seminars on research methods, presentations by visiting speakers and a conference at which students will present papers prepared during the semester and which may form the basis of their dissertation.
Dissertation: In the summer students complete a dissertation on a programme-related topic approved by the Programme Director.
Delivery and Assessment
Modules are taught by a combination of lectures and small group teaching, in the form of seminars or workshops. The quantitative methods module includes teaching in a computing lab. Assessment typically includes assessed coursework and an end of semester examination. Resit examinations are available.
Career Opportunities
There are excellent employment opportunities in the financial, environmental and energy sector at the national and international level. Possible employers could be international organizations (e.g. the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, OECD, European Union), governmental bodies related to energy and environment as well as private companies in the insurance, banking, financial and energy sector.
