This course offers an in-depth exploration of environmental economics with a focus on the challenges and opportunities that firms face in addressing sustainability, climate change, and regulatory requirements. Students will gain a comprehensive understanding of key topics such as carbon pricing mechanisms (including carbon taxes and Emissions Trading Systems), corporate sustainability reporting, the circular economy model, decarbonization strategies, and climate finance.

Through a combination of lectures, case studies, and group activities, students will develop the analytical skills needed to assess the impact of environmental policies on business operations and formulate strategies for sustainable growth in a rapidly changing global landscape.

Course Objectives:

• Understand the key environmental issues that firms face, including international regulations and market pressures.
• Explore climate change impacts on business and economic activities.
• Analyze firm strategies for sustainability, decarbonization, and circular economy practices.
• Develop knowledge of carbon markets, carbon neutrality, and climate finance mechanisms.
• Evaluate policies and regulatory frameworks relevant to environmental economics.

The course will be divided into two parts. Approximately the first half of the course will deal with the financial and risk analyses of projects, while the second half of the course will deal with the economic and social analyses of projects. The first half of the course deals with the construction of cash flow statements emphasizing the importance of analyzing the program from the viewpoints of all stakeholders. In the course, we also analyze the different investment criteria, their usefulness and limitations, as well as provide a framework for the appraisal of integrated projects. Attention is given to the impact of relative inflation rates and changing exchange rates on the viability of projects. The importance of selecting the optimal scale and starting time for a project is also addressed. The course also examines the issue of project risk by using Monte Carlo simulation to determine the distribution for a project’s possible outcomes and the risks associated with these outcomes.

In the second half of the course we deal with the detailed estimation of the economic costs and benefits of both tradable and non-tradable goods and services. While the economic viability of projects will be largely invariant to changes in fiscal regimes, such changes could have significant impacts on the financial riskness and profitability of projects. In this part of the course, the interaction between the economic viability and the financial risk of investment projects will be examined. To determine the social aspects of projects, we need to understand the difference between the financial and economic impacts of these projects. The course will explain the means of estimating the distributional impacts while emphasizing the importance of identifying the beneficiaries of a project and the bearers of the cost. The course will also introduce the basic needs approach to account for the benefits of certain goods or services that society as a whole values more than the consumers of these goods.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes international trade as an engine for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, and as an important means to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This course is aimed at giving students a thorough understanding of the key theoretical foundations and policy debates in international trade for development. The focus will be on research-led policy-relevant approaches that enable students to better understand national, bilateral, and multilateral cooperation as well as policies for development.

In a hands-on setting during workshops, you will learn to apply basic tools and concepts and become familiar with some applied econometric techniques (analysing trade flows, partial equilibrium with structural Gravity).
The policy negotiation game is a simulation game of an official international meeting in which student groups from delegations for major countries. Your group will prepare a policy document based on the most recent publications by IMF, G20, OECD, UNCTAD, WTO and actually negotiation in a setting that represents a
meeting at one of these organizations.

Upon completion, you will have a good understanding of international trade theories and up-to-date knowledge about topical developments in the world economy and their consequences on issues related to developing countries.

You will be able to analyse the determinants of trade, to measure the impact of trade and to provide evidence-based policy advice that fits development strategies in development strategies. Students will be expected to present papers that are closely related to the materials covered to answer several brief questions and able to prepare a critical evaluation and summary. Students are also expected to watch required short teaching videos
and read articles beforehand (the first hour of teaching sessions). The second hour of teaching sessions will be devoted to work through Q&A, discussions, small exercises, synthesizing and testing skills in applying  knowledge.

Urban economics is a branch of economics which stemmed from microeconomics in the 1940s and combined knowledge in this field and geography. This branch of economics addresses the issue of urbanization and formation of cities based on the theory of agglomeration and individual’s housing location decision. By understanding that underlying mechanism, one can explore other prominent issues often tied to urban development such as transportation, housing, and employment. There might exist a misunderstanding of the notion of urban economics, a number of people likened it to economic activities in an urban context. This misunderstanding or interpretation of urban economics has been somewhat common in Vietnam as the Vietnamese language does not distinguish economics from economy.

Urban economics has had different theoretical and applied development stages and centers, and was developed mainly in North America and Europe. In recent years, issues of interest to scholars in the field include agglomeration/clustering and economic efficiency due to the clustering of economic activity, and knowledge spillover, urbanization, and the distribution of labor and employment. Scholars from East Asia and Southeast Asia such as Thailand and Vietnam have also been interested in this field since the 2000s.

This unit will provide you with an opportunity to learn the fundamental principles of international finance. The world has witnesses the large-scale flows of financial assets from country to country. The international financial markets have become more and more integrated. Economic activities have been taking place well beyond the borders of national economies, and financial investors operate on a world scale and their operations technically happen 24/7. My visits to London; Paris; New York; Toronto; Los Angeles and other North American and European cities have confirmed that financial market operates 24/7. Investors in New York can place an order to buy 100 million Australian dollars while Sydney-based investors are in the shopping malls. As usual, benefits generally go together with costs. This unit will provide a solid understanding of how the risks involved can be minimised and/or eliminated. The central theme of this unit is to identify the determinants of the capital flows; the associated prices; the risks involved; and the techniques to reduce/eliminate those risks.

The aim of this course is to introduce and analyze the issues and debates surrounding development finance, at both a global and local level.

Topics covered in the course include:

• Financial theory as a framework for analysis
• Relationship between finance, growth, development, and poverty alleviation
• Financial repression and liberalization
• Domestic financial system
• External financial system
• Financial crises and debt crises
• Fintech, Financial Inclusion, and Economic Growth
• Financing the Sustainable Development Goals
• Green and sustainable finance and new satellite data for measuring development

During the course, students will apply different approaches to the collection, analysis, and pre- sensation of data, as well as in critically evaluating specific issues of development, and gathering, organizing, and using evidence and information from a wide variety of sources.

It provides skills in identifying, investigating, and justifying possible solutions to problems arising out of the theory and practice of finance development. These also include competency in developing a reasoned argument, critically considering data sources, and defending different approaches.

By the end of this course, students should have obtained a detailed knowledge of the key issues and debates in various aspects of finance development, familiarity with theoretical approaches concerning development problems and an appreciation of the diversity of policy implications.

The main learning aim of this MA-level course is for students to understand and critically engage with the behavioral dimensions of economic and financial decisions in the context of low and middle-income countries. The first part reviews basic concepts in behavioral economics and finance (incl. biases, heuristics, non-standard risk and time preferences, nudging). Students will be exposed to applications in the field of finance and development economics. The second part selectively discusses specific topics ranging from financial literacy, gender to poverty and cognition.

The course consists of 8 lectures.