The class will introduce students to energy technologies, with specific regards to markets and policy. The objective of the course is to provide the economist’s perspective on a broad range of topics that professionals in the energy industry will encounter. Topics include the effect of competition, market power and scarcity on energy prices, the impact of deregulation on electricity and fossil fuel markets, extraction and pricing of oil and gas, the health and environmental impacts and policies related to the energy sector, energy efficiency, the economics and finance of renewable energy, and recent developments in the transportation sector. The course will use the World Energy Outlook (2017) to analyze future energy projections and to focus on the prospects for all energy sources, regions and sectors and the interactions between energy and the environment and the issue of energy security. Each student will complete the course better able to:

• Understand the fundamentals of energy markets and policymaking.

• Describe economic structures and regulation schemes that are common in energy markets.

• Discuss when and how governments have economic rationale to intervene in markets and what particular forms of market structure and market failure can tell us about how to design
and implement effective policy.

• Analyze the economic merits of policy proposals to intervene in energy markets.