ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL VALUATION

The expected learning outcomes concern the personal and professional training of the student of Architecture starting from the awareness of the theoretical issues, the methodological structures and the applicative tools that preside over the aspects of the value and evaluations of the different forms of social capital - private and public real estate - in the territorial contexts of reference and at the different scales. The dynamics of the territory in the framework of which these evaluations are inserted is represented by the economic variables that are coordinated in the project intended as an investment programme whose evaluation relates stock and streams measurements, with specific reference to the distribution variables that the transformations imprinted on the home-city-landscape system interprets in the light of the question of sustainability assumed as the convergence of inter/intra-generational solidarity.

DD1 The course provides the essential coordinates of the theory of value, starting from a historical, analytical and critical approach of the theoretical elaborations that can be traced back to the main schools of economic thought.

DD2 The above-mentioned aspects are linked to the method and procedures of the evaluation of private and public goods and projects and of environmental damage, and the related issue of the internalisation of externalities, with reference to the related qualitative-monetary, qualitative-physical and aesthetic-qualitative variables, hence to single and multi-criteria analysis tools. Particular attention is paid to the economic-environmental dimension of capital goods in the light of the relationship between the system and the environment that transformation processes modify in directions of which the evaluation emphasises the degree of financial feasibility, economic convenience, social equity and eco-systemic sustainability.

DD3 Two types of exercises will enable the student to apply the basic knowledge and methodological frameworks acquired, in particular: 1) in the field of property valuation; 2) of the critical analysis of urban environmental identities in the specific context of historical building fabrics.

DD4 The student must be able to communicate the results of the experimentation carried out through a report that coherently sets out the logical, methodological and operational path.

DD5 The student will have at his disposal appropriate models of analysis, evaluation and calculation, the knowledge and ability to apply them in different and further contexts.

The teaching of Environmental Economics and Estimates has a general reference to the question of value that spills over into an application context already defined as the 'house-city-landscape system' and provides for the application of approaches and tools for measuring the value of these transformations.

The didactic regulations do not provide for any prerequisites. Consequently, the prerequisites include solid basic knowledge of urban architecture theory and spatial planning, architectural technology, restoration, mathematical analysis and linear algebra.

The course is divided into four modules that are integrated and therefore treated in parallel:

1. History analysis and critique of economic theories with reference to the issue of the theory of wealth and value;

2. Method and procedures of single and multi-dimensional valuation in real estate, urban;

3. Capital theory and economic-financial valuation of investments with elements of actuarial mathematics;

4. Complex valuation in the spatial and environmental field with monetary and extra-monetary measures.

Exercise on the real estate market or the economic-urban analysis of historical building fabric.

In detail:

1. Introduction: aims, methods, tools

1.1. Economics as the science of wealth and the science of value: main definitions; Micro- and Macro-economics; Wealth and value, Economics and Estimate;

1.2. Estimation: The value judgement; content and form: values and valuations; the question of the valuing substance and the ways of its representation; economic objects and goods. Postulates of valuation and codes of conduct; Estimation and valuation; Economic aspects and criteria of valuation; Method and procedures of valuation: direct and indirect comparison; synthetic procedure (mono- and multi-parametric) and analytical procedure or by income capitalisation.

1.3. General aspects of the environmental issue: macro-systemic approach; the social system and the environment; social communication and generalised means of communication at a high symbolic level; internal communication and sub-system formation; codes, programmes and values.

1.4. Economic activity:

1.4.1.Wealth production: classical, neoclassical and new economics production functions; economic goods and factors of production and distributive variables - labour, land, capital; production and productivity; efficiency, effectiveness, cheapness and fairness of the production process;

1.4.2.Wealth exchange:

1.4.2.1. Circulation of economic goods: the market; market forms: perfect competition; functions of demand and supply; quantity as a function of price; market equilibrium; the spider's web model; elasticity of demand and supply; elasticity of different economic goods: goods-goods and goods-sign in the environmental issue; price as a function of quantity; examples of comparative statics; other market forms: monopoly/psonian; oligopoly/psonian - the game theory; monopolistic competition.

1.4.2.2. Money circulation: definitions of money; barter and credit economics; exchange equation and its interpretations; the value of money: liquidity; liquidity as a noun and as a property of economic goods and money; inflation; definition and causes;

1.4.3.Use/consumption of wealth: needs and utilities; desires and ethics of consumption; hedonism: individual axiology and collective ethics: person and community; utility function; total and marginal utility; utility and value; utility and valorising substance; relations between being a commodity and being a sign of economic goods;

Wealth accumulation: definition and classification of investments; productive and speculative investments; upward and downward speculation; the stock market and financial markets; real estate finance; environmental finance; capital, capitalism, capitalists. Building production and property speculation;

1.5. Values and socio-economic models: Definitions and classifications of economic goods, investments, values: types of value and plans of the economy.

1.6. From economic theory to estimative practice: economic-estimative epistemology: substance of value and forms of valuation.

2. The question of value in economic analysis: theories of value

2.1. Episteme of similarity and representation: Mercantilists, Malthus and Keynes; Wealth-money theory.

2.2. Epistemes of production and labour: Physiocracy and land-value, intersectoral analysis and Leontief's input-output model, classical-Marxian economics and labour theory of value; theory of capital, Fisher and Hicks, theory of capital and the temporal form of investment, neoclassical economics and the theory of value marginal utility/productivity; problems consumer, producer (technical or minimax, commercial under perfect competition and monopoly, technical-commercial or joint production), Paretian optimum; internalisation of environmental externalities: command and control: Pigouvian taxes and subsidies, standards and tradable permits; Total Economic Value and contingent valuation; IPAT model; Ecological Footprint; Coase Theorem; environmental Kuznets curve.

Semiotic-hermeneutic and bio-technological episteme: the triangle of the three surpluses, environmental economics, ecological economics and new economics, new theory of value-energy/information, new theory of capital and monetary form of investment. Energy and information, entropy/neg-entropy, mathematical and semantic information. Economics as a linguistic and communicative activity, valuation as a process of signification, information and communication and as a semiotic-hermeneutic activity. Comparison of similar and dissimilar.

3. Values and evaluations: classifications, methods, processes and calculations

3.1. Classifications of estimation (or valuation) methods and procedures:

3.1.1.The Serpierian paradigm and the estimation of private goods: market, capitalisation, transformation, surrogate, cost, complementary values.

3.1.2.Single-criteria analysis and the valuation of public investments; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Cost-Revenue Analysis;

3.1.3.Multi-criteria analysis.

3.1.4.Intertemporal preference coefficients or financial mathematics.

4. Private and public spatial assessments

4.1. Urban micro-estimates

4.1.1. The real estate market;

4.1.2. Estimation of urban real estate and building areas;

4.1.3. Cost estimation: the estimated metric calculation.

4.2. Legal estimates:

4.2.1. Expropriations for reasons of public utility;

4.2.2. Coercive easements and military easements;

4.2.3. Usufruct, use, habitation, life tenure, surface rights;

4.2.4. Estimation of damages.

4.2.5.The technician in the process: arbitration and the technical advice of the court and of the party:

4.3. Cadastral valuation

4.3.1. Land registry;

4.3.2. Cadastre of Buildings.

4.4. Land-urban cadastre: macro-estimates

4.4.1. The evaluation of plans and projects and environmental assessments; urban and environmental equalisation;

4.4.2. The valuation of the cultural-environmental heritage.

4.4.3. The valuation of environmental damage: restoration costs, illicit profit and dis-value of social use; The Consolidated Text (D.L. 152/2006): from the compensatory to the restorative regime; primary, complementary and compensatory repair.

4.5. Monetary valuations, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Cost-Revenue Analysis, Cost-Benefit Analysis; distinction between benefits and revenues, between revenues and revenues, between costs and expenses; classification of benefits: tangible, intangible and incommensurable; primary and secondary, direct, indirect, induced and derived; differences between CBA and RBA: benefits; market and shadow prices; Willingness to Pay, time horizon, Social Discount Rate; principles of compensation; the issue of equity: weighing benefits and costs; investment selection criteria: the NPV, B/C ratio, External Rate of Return; Internal Rate of Return; Discounted Payback Period (DPbP).

4.6. Non-monetary evaluations: Multi-Criteria Analysis; Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) additive procedures: aggregation procedure in a single criterion; interactive: the Interactive Matrix; outperformance: Electre II Method; Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

5. Exercises

5.1. The market and property valuation;

5.2. Economic-environmental analysis and assessment of historic building-urban fabrics.

1. Rizzo F., Economia del patrimonio architettonico ambientale, Franco Angeli, Milano 1989.
2. Rizzo F., Valore e valutazioni. La scienza dell’economia o l’economia della scienza, Franco Angeli, Milano 1999.
3. Begg D. Fischer S. Dornbusch R, Economia, McGraw-Hill, 2001.
4. AA.VV. Enciclopedia dell’economia Garzanti, Garzanti, 1995, oppure un manuale di economia politica a scelta.
5. Grillenzoni M., Grittani G., Estimo, teoria, procedure di valutazione e casi applicativi, Edagricole, Bologna, 1990.
6. Polelli M. Nuovo trattato di Estimo, Hoepli, 2008.
7. Roscelli R. (a cura di) Manuale di Estimo. Valutazioni economiche d esercizio professionale, UTET, Torino, 2014.
8. Bresso M., Per un’economia ecologica, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, Roma 1993
9. Ratterman M., The Appraisal of Real Estate
10. Callan S. J., Thomas J. M, Environmental Economics and Management

Oral test, comprising: as an admission test: the verification of the exercise; a practical test relating to the execution of a financial mathematics exercise; as a qualification test the discussion of a topic for each of the four parts of the programme.

Definitions of the main economic categories

Production functions

Market Forms

Market equilibrium

Utility function

Forms and mechanisms of capital accumulation

The property market

Property valuation

Synthetic and analytical procedure

Single- and multi-parameter estimation

The capitalisation essay

Healthy circuit of mercantilism

Principle of effective demand

Keynes' psychological laws

Full Keynesian circuit

Serpierian paradigm

Land-value theory

Physiocracy and the Leontief model

Cost value and estimated metric value

Transformation value

Differential rent; land and urban rent

Labour-value theory in Ricardo and Marx

Trend fall of the profit rate in Marx

Consumer problem

Theory of the firm: technical, economic and transformation problem

Paretian Optimism

Environmental economics

Externalities

Taxes and subsidies

Environmental standards

Negotiable permits

Valuation of rights in rem: surface rights, usufruct, use and habitation, easements

Forensic valuation: expropriation for public utility

Benefit-cost analysis

Classification of benefits

Economic and financial analysis

Willingness to pay

Shadow prices

Selection criteria; NPV TTR TIR Elasticity, Average period, PLR

New economics: semiotic-hermeneutic and bio-technological approach

New theory of value: the three surplus triangle

Estimative economic semiotics

Social system and environment; economic-estimative sociology

Energy/Neg-entropy theory of value

Information theory of value

Multi-criteria analysis: method of aggregation into a single criterion; Electre II model; interactive matrix

Environmental impact assessment; EIA phases; impact matrix; values and weights