20271 - PUBLIC ECONOMICS
Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
Class-group lessons delivered on campus
Basic knowledge of microeconomics and microeconometrics is recommended.
Government intervention in modern economies is ubiquitous and sizeable. As a crude measure, government revenues and expenditures in European countries account for 40% of GDP on average. Government intervention reduces inequality and promotes social mobility, but it also distorts market incentives and generates inefficiency. How to address this trade-off is in the hands of national governments who act in a globalised world. Understanding when the government should intervene, how it should do so and with what consequences is crucial to grasp how modern economies work. The aim of this course is to provide students with theoretical and empirical tools to analyse different areas of public intervention and their interplay. During classes we identify the institutional details which characterise a given policy; frame policy questions in theoretical terms; find the appropriate data to perform empirical analysis on the impact of a given policy and familiarise with the empirical toolkit that is used in this literature.
The course focuses on selected areas of public intervention, which are at the forefront of policy debate and academic research. We start from the observation that inequality is undermining political and economic stability and study the different angles from which public policy can tackle it. These include:
- Education and skill acquisition.
- Social security and redistribution.
- Tax systems and tax evasion.
- Gender.
- International migration and the integration of immigrants.
- Health disparities.
- Recognise the main trends in public intervention in the economy.
- Identify the main justifications for goverment intervention.
- Illustrate modes of intervention in education, social security and redistributive policy.
- Describe what motivates tax evasion.
- Distinguish the various dimensions of inequality.
- Discuss the fiscal impact of immigration.
Address policy relevant questions by:
- Identifying the institutional details which characterise a given policy.
- Framing the policy question in theoretical terms.
- Choose the appropriate data to perform empirical analysis on the impact of the policy.
- Analyse and interpret the results of the empirical analyses.
- Advocate for specific public policy interventions.
- Face-to-face lectures
- Group assignments
Students must form small groups. Each group is assigned a paper from a reading list to be presented or discussed in class (group presentation). The schedule for presentations and discussions, as well as the groups are decided in class, depending on attendance.
Continuous assessment | Partial exams | General exam | |
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x | x | ||
x | x |
Two partial exams or general, plus group assignment. The exam aims at verifying that students are able to present theoretical models, to analyse and interpret the results of empirical analyses, and to discuss alterntive policy reform proposals.
Two partial exams or general. The exam aims at verifying that students are able to present theoretical models, to analyse and interpret the results of empirical analyses, and to discuss alterntive policy reform proposals.
Most of the course is based on articles from scientific journals and working papers. The compulsory readings are provided at the beginning of the course on Bboard. A set of slides and lecture notes are uploaded before class and are compulsory material. Instructors are available to share the provisional reading list with the interested students before the beginning of the course.