This course examines questions of sustainability and sustainable development: Is sustainability incompatible with economic development? Or is economic growth a prerequisite for achieving sustainability? Does a more integrated global economy pose a threat to protecting the environment? This course appraises how sustainability can be understood, measured and promoted, using economic tools of analysis to explain the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to problems for environmental degradation in a changing, and increasingly interdependent, world. Topics will include loss of biodiversity, tropical deforestation, population growth and global climate change. Our analysis will build on theories of externalities and public goods, property rights, social choice, and the dynamics of institutions and technologies. Modules will include a) defining and strengths and limitations of the concept of sustainability, b) examining the process of economic development, c) case studies and analysis of the causes for success or failure in managing common-pool resources, and d) an assessment of the relationship between trade, globalization, the WTO, and the environment. Requirements include exercises, midterm and final exam. Prerequisite: Economics 101. Enrollment limited to 40.