Environment, Law & Economics Initiative

Welcome to FIU’s Environment, Law & Economics Initiative

As the world focuses on increasingly urgent environmental challenges, there is increasing pressure on policymakers, academics, and the public to devise and improve environmental protections that work well. South Florida is on the front lines of this fight, facing global environmental challenges sooner and bigger than most of the world.

Environmental protection advances many goals and values, from Environmental Justice and Bioethics to natural rights and human prosperity. Virtually all these goals and values can be enriched by a rigorous framework for assessing the impacts – in terms of costs and benefits – of different approaches.

The purpose of the Environment, Law, and Economics (ELE) Initiative is to apply rigorous impact assessment to environmental regulation, protecting our environment while promoting free societies and democratic governance. The ELE Initiative’s s goals are to:

• Advance our understanding of environmental protection and human prosperity.
• Conduct and promote research at the intersection of environmental science, regulatory frameworks, and economics.
• Host research workshops to allow students, scholars, and stakeholders to engage in civil discussion of environmental challenges, including climate change, biodiversity, coastal erosion, water quality, and local adaptation and resilience.
• Provide education and mentoring opportunities to future leaders in the field of environmental regulation, both among FIU law students, and among practitioners and public officials entering the field.

In conjunction with other FIU programs, ELE helps train a new generation of scholars and leaders in the law and economics of environmental protection and human prosperity.

Every year the ELE initiative co-hosts the FIU Environment Forum. Click here to learn more.

ELE Affiliated Faculty

Contact Us