Energy and Environmental Markets
MBA 212 / ERG 291P
3 Units
Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell

This is a Related Course of the MOT program.

In the past 30 years, some of the largest industries have made the transition from a regulated to market based paradigm. Managers in many transportation, information technology, and energy companies have had to devise strategies to cope with changes in economic and environmental regulations and the evolution of new markets and trading platforms. The energy industries feature a complex mix of regulation and market-driven incentives. Over the last decade, industries that had previously been viewed as staid and conservative have been rocked by deregulation initiatives, the California electricity crisis, the Enron scandal, rising commodity prices, and now the challenge to reduce greenhouse gases.

Drawing on the tools of economics and finance, we study the business and public policy issues that these changes have raised in energy markets. Topics include the development and effect of organized spot, futures, and derivative markets in energy, the political economy of deregulation, climate change, environmental impacts and policies related to energy production and use, privatisation of publicly owned energy assets, market power and antitrust, the transportation and storage of energy commodities, and the economics of alternative energy sources. We examine the economic determinants of industry structure and evolution of competition among firms in these industries, investigate successful and unsuccessful strategies for entering new markets and competing in existing markets, and analyze the rationale for and effects of public policies in energy markets.

Course Syllabus (pdf)