Economics

This course reviews and analyzes various aspects of economic inequality. Household heterogeneities related to credit restrictions, indebtedness, or marginal propensities to consume out of different sources of income or wealth are important to explain aggregate consumption behavior. Measures that directly aim to affect inequality at the aggregate level, such as wealth taxes, inheritance taxes etc., are often perceived as detrimental to economic efficiency. The course discusses key concepts of the economics discipline such as economic efficiency and welfare as they often are building blocks for economic advice on policy measures. This course sheds light on the trade-offs and distributional consequences of macroeconomic policies and trains students to explicitly articulate the underlying value assumptions. Students should have introductory knowledge in economics and statistics.

The course discusses the main aspects and trends of the world economy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the end of the course students understand the origin of the most important economic institutions and the features of the economic cycles so far experienced by the world economy. Topics addressed in more detail include the failure of the command economies, the construction of the European Union, the evolution and transformation of financial systems, globalization, and the regulation of the labor market in different countries.

This course analyzes how organizations in contemporary societies, often giant public administrations and private companies, operate. It provides the basic concepts of organization theory from a sociological perspective: control and efficiency; resource interdependencies and power; and bureaucracy (for organizing routine work), collegiality (for organizing innovative work), and combinations of both. The course discusses the role of organizations in the political economy, in social stratification, and in a digitalized society. Within this framework, the course puts a special emphasis on struggles to promote new institutions and to encourage innovation in the face of global challenges such as climate change.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on how economic thought has evolved over time and introduces students to a critical comparison of the contributions of the principal schools of economic thought: the classical, the marginalist revolution, and its application to the theories of general and partial equilibrium, and the current macroeconomic debate between the neo-classical and the Keynesian school. The course highlights specific theoretical contributions in the field of economic thought and key economists in the international economic debate. Economic thought is analyzed in relation to both its philosophical foundations and political implications and the contexts from which it emerged. The course is centered on the different visions and schools of economic thought that have evolved over time and their ties to the social, political, economic, and philosophical dimensions of their times.

The goal of this course is to provide rigorous theories and frameworks for understanding modern macroeconomic issues, debates, policies, and solutions. The course also aims to develop data analysis skills using macroeconomic data and MS Excel. 

Prerequisites: Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics and Calculus I.

The course addresses the main approaches to the measurement of inequality and poverty, their main trends at the global level, and their fundamental determinants. For each topic the course discusses the relevant theoretical framework, the main measurement issues, and the available empirical evidence. The course discusses topics including trends in inequality and poverty including inequality, the financial crisis, and the great recession, and global trends in inequality and poverty.; measurement tools including the need for criteria, the transfer principle and other criteria for evaluating inequality measures, income distribution functions (Pareto, Normal, and Log-normal), partial ordering methods (stochastic dominance and the Lorenz Curve), complete ordering methods (the Gini index), and measuring inequality using STATA; topics in inequality including the top 1%: capital in the 21st century, the remaining 99% (skills, education, job polarization, robots, trade, and the rise of earnings inequality), migration and inequality, intergenerational inequality (where is the Land of Opportunity?); measurement of intergenerational income elasticity and rank-rank regressions, the Great Gatsby curve, and optimal taxation; and topics in poverty including poverty measures, anti-poverty policies (earned income tax credit and food stamps), and Universal Basic Income in  advanced Countries. The course strongly recommends students have a background in microeconomics, mathematics, and statistics, including basic concepts such as utility functions, derivatives, integrals, probability distribution functions, expected values, mean, variance, and other basic quantitative concepts.