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Institutional and Resource
Economics
ENSn4669
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Ø Institutions as “rules of the game“ (Douglas North)
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“The real problem of humanity is the following:
we have Palaeolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and godlike
technology”
(sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, interview in 2009)
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Elinor Ostrom received the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic
Sciences
"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons“
She entitled her Nobel Address
“The Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems”
Available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6OgRki5SgM
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A short introduction to her work:
https://vimeo.com/121608252
A full-length documentary:
https://polisci.indiana.edu/news-events/news/2020-ostrom-
documentary-barbara-allen.html
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Outline:
Institutions
1. Introduction. Basic concepts, course outline, relevance, and
applications.
2. Institutions: The individual, the society, and the environment.
Definitions and language. Formal and informal rules, rules in-use versus
rules in-form, conventions, strategies, motivation, interests, rationality,
heuristics, norms, and values. Sociological, economic and political
perspectives.
3. Institutions: Coordination and conflict, power, institutional stability,
change and evolution. Institutional diversity and pluralism.
4. Classical and New Institutional Economics: different positions, values,
and world views. Actor-centred institutionalism and situationism.
5. Property rights and typologies of resource regimes and governance:
Private, Club, Common, Open Access, and Public Goods. Governance
structures and externalities versus transactions.
6. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework and the
Ostrom school of political theory and policy analysis.
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Outline:
Resources
8. Resource Economics: The use and limitations of models.
Stocks, flows, and funds. Exponential and logistic growth,
Gordon-Schaefer models. Renewable and non-renewable
resources: water, energy, land and climate change in
agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.
9. Ecological Resource Economics: towards an intuition of
complex system dynamics. Lotka-Volterra models, steady
states, stability, tipping points, thresholds, leverage points,
resilience and collapse.
10. Applications and methods of Institutional and Resource
Economics: Selected cases on exploitation, degradation,
erosion, and conservation in agriculture, forestry, and
fisheries. Methodological reflection and interactive debate.
11. Group work presentation and discussion on applications
selected by the students.
12. Towards Social-Ecological Systems and Sustainability
Transformations.
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Timeline
Date
17.2. Course introduction / Institutions
24.2. Institutions II
3.3. Classical Institutionalism and New Institutional Economics,
Property rights and resource regimes, Commons
10.3. Doughnot Economics: From Planetary Boundaries to thinking how an
economy can be regenerative by design (Claudio Cattaneo)
17.3. Application of the doughnut at the city scale (Claudio Cattaneo)
24.3. Barcelona as an example (Claudio Cattaneo)
31.3. Ecological Resource Economics
7.4. <Great Friday>
14.4. Applications: water, forests, fisheries
21.4. Q&A, discussion of your assignments
28.4. Case study: The Water–Energy–Food Nexus in India
5.5. Presentations I
12.5. Presentations II and Debate, Open Space, Experiment (4 hrs)
19.5. <Off>
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Claudio Cattaneo –PhD Ecological Economics
Doughnut Economics Consultant, Barcelona
March 10th – Intro to Kate Raworth “Doughnut Economics- 7 ways to think as a XXIst century economist”
March 17th – The Doughnut Economics Action Lab. An application of doughnut economics – The case of cities
March 24st – The Barcelona council’s early process towards doughnut economics.
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March 10th: short summary of
K.Raworth’s book, with her 7 ways to
revert neoclassical economics
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March 17th: what if we wanted to
apply Donut Economics to a city?
Unrolling the Donut and five tools to
work on it
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March 24th: what have we done in
Barcelona?
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Your background?
Environmental Studies, International Relations, other?
Your interests?
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Course requirements
• Essay / short paper (2000-2500 words): 50%
• Presentation (15min): 25%
• Oral exam (15min discussion based on essay & presentation): 25%
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