Graduate Student Handbook

Introduction

The mission of the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Energy, Environmental and Food Economics (EEFE) is to educate students as applied research economists in the fields of energy economics, environment and natural resource economics, and industrial organization in the food sector. The EEFE graduate program offers Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. Through completion of advanced course work and rigorous skills training, the Ph.D. and M.S. programs will prepare students to conduct independent research in accordance with the highest ethical standards, scientific integrity, and interpersonal collegiality, and to effectively interpret and communicate the results of their research. The M.S. degree includes training in theory and research methods applicable to the fields. The additional depth and breadth of training required in the Ph.D. curriculum will prepare students to conduct original research that advances scientific knowledge in their fields. Students will also acquire the background and skills necessary to be effective teachers, mentors, and practitioners of economics.

Intercollege Graduate Faculty

The EEFE program is an Intercollege Graduate Degree Program (IGDP), meaning that Penn State faculty members from departments in two or more colleges collaborate to offer this graduate major. The program is administered by a committee of graduate faculty members approved by the Graduate School under a Graduate Program Chair. The program’s graduate faculty represents the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education in the College of Agricultural Sciences, the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Department of Risk Management in the Smeal College of Business, and the School of Public Policy.

The IGDP model enables a unique and innovative graduate program in energy, environmental, and food economics that can offer student world class training in economic theory and methods, and opportunities to work with high profile leaders in energy, environmental, and food research.

Core Curricula

The core curricula for the M.S. and Ph.D. programs are composed of courses that all students are required to take and that will provide state-of-the-art training in those aspects of microeconomic theory, applied welfare economics, econometrics, and computational quantitative methods that are most relevant for cutting-edge research in the focal fields. The core curricula will give students the following specific research and computation skills:

1. Demonstrated knowledge of and ability to apply the concepts and tools of modern microeconomic theory to develop behavioral hypotheses for individual economic agents, markets, and institutions in energy resources and systems; environment and natural resources; and food industrial organizations.
2. Demonstrated knowledge of and ability to apply concepts and methods of modern econometric theory to test economic hypotheses.
3. Demonstrated knowledge of and ability to use the theory and tools of welfare economics to quantitatively describe the impacts of public policies, industrial decisions, or market forces on the overall functioning of markets for relevant commodities and services, and the impacts on specific sectors of market actors.
4. Demonstrated knowledge of and ability to use computational tools for the assimilation of very large data sets for empirical analysis or the construction of appropriate models to address research questions that cannot be answered by empirical means.

The core curricula, other required and elective courses, seminars, and other trainings will be used to train all students in the program to

1. Communicate scientific findings effectively through written and oral methods to technical and lay audiences.
2. Conduct and communicate research in accordance with the highest ethical standards, scientific integrity, and interpersonal collegiality.

Fields of Concentration

In addition to receiving broad training in the fundamentals of applied economic research in the core curriculum, Ph.D. candidates are required to obtain specialized training through the selection of one or more field concentrations. The field concentrations are designed to position Ph.D. students to be able to perform research whose novelty is widely recognized by field experts. Educational objectives associated with each of the fields are as follows:

Energy Economics, Policy, and Systems: Students will gain demonstrable expertise in the structure, function, and performance of markets for crude oil, natural gas, electric power, and transportation/industrial fuels. They will also demonstrate the ability to define and implement novel research questions based on a fundamental understanding of the energy industries.

Examples of specific areas of expertise include:

• Price formation and competition in crude oil, natural gas, and electric power markets
• Fundamentals of competition analysis in these markets
• Modeling the interactions between technologies, energy conversion and delivery systems, and market processes
• Assessing the impacts on firms and consumers from attempts to regulate energy markets, prices, or other aspects of energy commodities
• Understanding the major determinants and pace of innovation in energy technologies.

Environment and Resource Economics: Students will learn theory and empirical methods used for applied economics research on causes of market failures applicable to environmental goods and natural resources, explain and predict the behavior of individual economic agents and collections of agents affecting environmental and natural resource outcomes under alternative property rights regimes and resource allocation mechanisms, measure the benefits and costs of environmental and resource policies, and develop innovative mechanisms for addressing environmental and natural problems.

Examples of specific areas of expertise include:

• Developing structural models of land markets to analyze land use and transportation policies, and estimate associated benefits and costs
• Developing and implementing surveys to test hypotheses regarding public preferences for environmental goods
• Developing and implementing laboratory and field experiments to test hypotheses regarding economic behaviors under alternative natural resource allocation mechanism
• Developing and applying integrated assessment models for analysis of climate change policies and impacts
• Developing coupled models of economic activity and water quality for analyzing benefits and costs of water pollution policy innovations.

Food Industrial Organization: Students will learn theory and empirical methods to investigate and research the structure and performance for food and agricultural markets. Students will gain expertise in both consumer and firm behavior, which includes strategic considerations of all major players in the market.

Examples of specific topics include:

• Developing structural models of firm and consumer behavior in the market
• Testing theoretical results with micro-level data and current marketing/industrial organization (IO) models
• Investigating reduced-form models of market outcomes after identifying exogenous shifts in underlying market forces or policies
• Exploring the evolution of theoretical models of consumer demand
• Exploring linkages, via structural or reduced-form models, between food behavior and health.