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[MUSIC PLAYING]
We hope that, during this class, you'll learn to think
about how incentives matter, about how to follow the money.
Because that's what typical greedy people do.
They do things that are in their own self-interest, and
try to avoid things that aren't in their self-interest.
So, the first thing that we want you to think about is how
self-interest plays a role in our everyday economy, whether
it's a market economy, or even in a communist economy.
Any kind of economy is dictated by self-interest.
And, human beings, they're interested in themselves.
And that's really, in large part, what economics is about.
And then to use those principles to think about
public policy issues, but, in particular, environmental
issues, to think about them analytically.
What you see on television and other places about the
environment, is very thin, without a lot of substance.
It's about good guys and bad guys.
And so, what I want you think about is, not a world of good
guys and bad guys, but a world where people respond to their
incentives.
And how the goal of policy is to create incentives to
maximize the wealth of society.
Not only the physical wealth and the money wealth, but also
the value of our environmental goods.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In many ways, this course is a beginning, not an end.
So, if you just take one course in economics, or really
any other field, a few months, a few years later, it's hard
to think about anything that applies.
As an undergraduate, I had a take a
course in eastern religions.
Trust me, I don't remember anything at all from it.
So, we hope that, in the course of studying energy
business and policy, in the course of our undergraduate
major, we will reinforce the lessons that are taught here,
and really help our students become energy professionals.
And perhaps, more importantly, just to get a better
understanding of what goes on in the world and why things
happen, at least from an economic point of view.
I view economics as a lens, a way of seeing
things in the world.
It's the way I see things.
It's the way I'm best at seeing things.
There are other ways of seeing things, of course.
But for me, it really helps me understand a lot of
what's going on.