The course gives an overview of analytical, empirical and institutional issues in modern economic natural resource management and policy, and the tools, experience and insights that economists and decision-makers have gained from the management of nature, broadly defined. The terms of reference of the course will, in particular, be an economic analysis and evaluation of the resource management and policy regimes developed by a natural resource-rich country like Norway.
The course will cover important aspects of the natural resource management and policy regimes through the resource value chain from exploration, production, transportation, etc. to end-use and the economic "value chain" from macroeconomic aspects, via sectors and markets, to aspects at the micro level (firms and consumers). Typically the course will concentrate on sectors where Norway has comparative advantages such as the fisheries sector, fish farming and aquaculture, hydropower production and the petroleum sector.
Norway is abundantly endowed with natural resources and the utilization of its resource base has strongly influenced the industrial structure, foreign trade, economic development and welfare of the country. Norway is particularly rich in energy resources (oil, natural gas and water for hydro power production), fish, including fish farming, and some minerals, including thorium as a potential resource base for new technologies of nuclear power generation. The small size of the country (population 5 million), its geographic location on the outskirts of Europe, its political system and the generally high regard among its people for preserving the natural environment, have generated some special approaches to, and institutional arrangements for, the Norwegian natural resource and environmental management regime.