The course will provide students with an understanding of the processes, techniques and tools for assessing private and public actions’ impacts on the environment. The course will identify and examine all relevant information necessary to assess the impact of a proposed action on specific environmental indicators. Students will learn how to incorporate elements of cost benefit analysis into decision making and policy design. Students will be also familiarized with critiques of the cost benefit analysis, so they can judge when it is a good tool to use and when it isn’t. This course will cover the conceptual and microeconomic foundations of cost-benefit analysis. It will also include discussions on the legal and philosophical issues underlying cost-benefit analysis. The main focus of this course will be on the practical steps and techniques involved in an actual cost-benefit analysis. Students will learn practical methods of market and non-market valuation of costs and benefits.