Coordinator: Prof. Laura Castellucci

The PhD Program in Environmental Law and Economics provides advanced specialization in environmental and natural resource economics, management and regulation. The greatest problems global society faces today are linked to the environment and to the use of natural resources. Climate change, energy production, environmental damages, deforestation, biodiversity loss, air, water and soil pollution, overfishing, waste disposal, to mention just a few among the most urgent problems of today society, cannot be solved, or at least alleviated, unless governments take proper actions. But proper actions are late to appear and this is why situation is deteriorating at an increasing pace making the risk of un-sustainability very likely. To address the numerous issues for policies intervention design and implementation, an interdisciplinary approach seems most appropriate.

This is exactly what the program does, integrating the economic perspective with the juridical one to provide students with a true understanding of the complexity of problems at hands. Courses, seminars and essays writing constitute the program features. Preliminary courses provide students with the basics of mathematics, statistics and the “language” of natural resource economics necessary to go through the full set of micro and macro dimensions of environmental issues. After these preliminary courses, specific courses follow meant to give an overview of both environmental economics and environmental law as well as a deeper understanding in selected areas of the two fields of study. It is mainly thought for students whose aspirations are for a job in research-oriented institutions.

(Please notice that the Programme is taught in Italian)