GREThA (Research Group in Theoretical and Applied Economics)

GREThA (Research Group in Theoretical and Applied Economics) is a Joint Research Unit (UMR) consisting of CNRS and the University of Bordeaux, and was created in 2007 to specialise in the field of environmental economics. GREThA aims to combine economic, ecological, mathematical and numerical modelling in order to address environmental management issues across the following areas i) Environmental and economic criteria for intergenerational equity ii) Uncertainty in the management of complex environmental systems, iii) Agents heterogeneity and public policies governance, and iv) Environmental inequalities and ecological sustainability.

To deal with the research questions, GREThA builds models based on inter-temporal optimality control, in particular cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, but also approaches such as viability control and safe minimum standards. The goal is to identify the conditions under which it is possible to reconcile environmental and socio-economic targets when constraints and critical thresholds are set on both the dynamics of the resource and the economic system. The issue of uncertainty, which is crucial in environmental management problems, is analysed in terms of risk assessment but also in terms of ambiguity, with new approaches such as multi-prior models, worst-case, total risk-averse and robust methods. Analysis of public policy decision-making process is conducted by identifying conflicting goals and strategies of the stakeholders. To achieve good governance, building indicators, reference points and scenarios are constructed.

Contribution to LabEx

The main LabEx contributions are the development of methods for valuation, modelling and design of sustainable management policies for natural resources, ecosystems services and biodiversity. GREThA provides methods and models that contribute to the final decision making process, such as the precautionary principle taking into account the heterogeneity of stakeholders and the way they cooperate.