PUBLIC ECONOMICS

This course offers an exploration of the intellectual framework or public economics. The course discusses questions including should we encourage government intervention in the economy and on what grounds, what are the different instruments the government can use in order to achieve its goals and what should these goals be. The course builds on robust theoretical and empirical arguments, together with sound institutional analyses, in order to achieve an in-depth understanding of government reasons to intervene and ways of intervention. The course examines topics including government expenditure, deficit, and debt; education; social and health insurance; pension systems; taxation and progressivity; taxation incidence; optimal taxation; income taxation; consumption taxation; and inequality and redistribution. Students complete a written midterm and written final exam.