Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (FECS)

ECON 2689 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Doctoral level review of theory and practice of climate finance.   FECS assumes prior doctoral level training in finance and/or economics.   We briefly review basic climate science and fundamentals of finance and economics as applied to climate and nature issues (eight hours).  The core of the course then covers recent research on climate and asset pricing (four hours); investment management (four hours), corporate finance (two hours), banking and insurance (two hours); and biodiversity and nature finance (two hours), plus a final session.  There are optional “elective” sessions on specialized climate topics (e.g., in prior years, the energy system; transition plans; private markets).  The course is taught by a teaching team of about a dozen top scholars in climate finance to over 150 institutions simultaneously.  At Harvard, students meet weekly with Prof. Tufano for class and will be required to present a final paper that is either (a) a review of recent relevant papers or (b) an original research proposal relating to climate finance. Participants will also be required to provide one-page summaries of two required papers over the course of the term. Full details and prior year’s reading lists are available at https://salatainstitute.harvard.edu/financial-economics-of-climate-and-sustainability/