WISO300580 Game theory in environmental and natural resource management

Type
Lecture
Semester hours
2
Lecturer (assistant)
Nitsch, Felix
Organisation
Sustainable Economic Development
Offered in
Wintersemester 2026/27
Languages of instruction
Englisch
Content

Why do international climate negotiations stall even when everyone would benefit from cooperation?
Why does building a new road may make traffic worse?
Why is electricity being auctioned on markets, and how should you place your bids?

Game Theory gives you the tools to answer questions like these. It is the mathematical study of strategic interaction among rational, self-interested decision-makers, and one of the most influential ideas to emerge from 20th-century economics, with applications spanning from biology, political science, and computer science to environmental policy.
This course introduces the formal foundations of game theory and puts them to work on real strategic problems, from the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons to auction design, oligopoly competition, and the strategic logic behind international environmental treaties such as the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols.
Along the way, you'll see why some societies escape collective-action traps and others don't, why markets behave so differently depending on whether firms compete on price or quantity, and how strategic thinking even helps explain animal behavior and the spread of pandemics.

No prior background in game theory is required. The course is designed for master's students from economics, environmental science, political science, engineering, and related fields who want a rigorous yet applied toolkit for analyzing strategic situations.
Previous knowledge expected


Objective (expected results of study and acquired competences)

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to
* Identify and formally represent strategic situations as games, using both normal-form (matrix) and extensive-form (tree) representations.
* Solve games using dominance arguments, pure-strategy and mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium, and backward induction in dynamic games.
* Explain when and why cooperation succeeds or fails in social dilemmas, and evaluate mechanisms (repetition, punishment, institutions, norms) that can sustain it.
* Apply game-theoretic reasoning to environmental and resource problems, including the Tragedy of the Commons, international environmental treaty design, and climate cooperation.
* Analyze market competition, including duopoly models (Cournot/Bertrand), monopoly regulation, mechanism design, and auctions.
* Critically assess real-world strategic situations, from electricity markets to pandemics, using the appropriate game-theoretic framework.
You can find more details like the schedule or information about exams on the course-page in BOKUonline.