Economics

This course places special emphasis on recent macroeconomic history and data, as well as how to retrieve and analyze macro data from publicly available sources, using the R statistical software. It covers core aspects of macroeconomics such as GDP, consumption, investment, the trade balance, and inflation through the lens of macroeconomic evidence, and discusses different macroeconomic theories (neoclassical and Keynesian) in light of this evidence. The course also discusses policy-relevant topics such as fiscal and monetary policy, public debt, and budget and trade deficits. An introductory economics course is a prerequisite.

This course examines how economies can be supported to grow and develop. Growth and development are not synonymous. Economic growth aims to increase a country’s national income. Development aims to generate positive qualitative changes. However, both indicators are continuous processes affecting a country’s welfare and social progress.

This course examines how cities pursue sustainability through governance, planning, and citizen participation. Students explore how environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability intersect within urban policy and daily life, connecting global frameworks—such as the UN 2030 Agenda and the European Green Deal—to local experimentation and community-driven innovation. While Florence provides a unique laboratory for studying how a historic city responds to contemporary challenges (climate adaptation, mobility transformation, housing pressures, and social inclusion) students are encouraged to compare it with other urban contexts across Europe and beyond. This comparative perspective fosters cross-fertilization among diverse models of governance and participation, allowing students to grasp how cities function as complex adaptive systems—dynamic environments where multiple actors, ideas, and scales interact to shape sustainable urban futures. USF combines analytical seminars, field explorations, and participatory exercises. Through simulations, role play games and collaborative projects, students experience the dynamics of real-world decision-making and democratic governance in sustainability planning.

This course traces the evolution of economic thinking throughout the late-modern and contemporary era. It surveys the major currents of classical, socialist, neo-classical, demand-side, Soviet, neoliberal, and contemporary economics while providing a detailed examination of both theory and practice. Economic thought is presented and discussed alongside its relationship of mutual influence with historical events to provide a clear perspective of how ideas and theories influenced the unfolding of key events, such as the Industrial Revolution or the rise of welfare economics, and of how in turn crises, conflicts and radical experiments influenced economic thinking. The different currents of economic thought are discussed both in the specific context of the times in which they were conceptualized as well as part of broad debates that continue to this day, such as those on laissez-faire versus State intervention, on welfare and private interest, on national sovereignty and globalization, and on inequality and growth. The course not only accounts for the theoretical origins of capitalist and socialist economics, but also details the theoretical and practical evolution of both, providing an analysis of the often sidelined but historically and economically meaningful Soviet planning experiments. It covers two and a half centuries of economic thought through subsequent sessions dedicated to major thinkers and the key events that influenced and shaped their theories. The course then reaches the contemporary era fully equipped to survey and discuss the theoretical and practical answers to the economic crises of the 1990s and 2000s. Finally, the course discusses the core issues and broad debates that link all its parts to consider their purposes and outcomes. 

This course introduces some of the basic concepts, methods, and models in economics, and provides a study of current economic issues in our everyday lives.

This course is a professional basic course that must be offered by undergraduate students of economics and management and expounds the basic theory of modern microeconomy. Microeconomics takes micro individuals as the research object, revolves around the allocation of scarce resources, and its central theory is price theory. Specifically, it studies consumer preferences and demand, manufacturer production and supply, competitive supply and market power in commodity markets, general equilibrium theory and externalities, etc. Through the study of the above theories, microeconomics provides explanations and guidance for the production behavior and consumption behavior of market subjects. Through the study of this course, students should understand the research object, research paradigm and framework system of microeconomics, know how micro individuals allocate resources and maximize returns under the action of market mechanism, and understand the internal laws and limitations of micro market economy operation. The teaching of this course should implement the principle of linking theory with practice, focus on explaining the basic theories, basic knowledge and basic skills of economics, cultivate students' initial ability to analyze and explain economic phenomena, and be able to apply the learned theories to the analysis of real economic management problems.

This course explores the concept of circular economy and sustainable development through the prism of private business including three primary subcategories: sustainable public purchases, sustainable corporate conduct under renewed corporate law rules, and sustainable consumption and support of environmental legislation at the international level. It discusses the newest developments in EU law for each subcategory. 

The first part of the course focuses on the foundations of public economics. The course introduces classical theories concerning equity, efficiency, and the rationales for government intervention in the economy. Students discuss market failure in the context of public goods and externalities, including environmental policy. They also discuss problems of public choice and political economics, and the implications of recent research in behavioral economics for policymaking. Students also study modern empirical methods that are used to evaluate the causal effects of public policies. The second part of the fall term considers social insurance policies, including unemployment insurance, disability insurance, retirement pensions, and public health insurance. Students study the economic rationale for government intervention in social insurance and the optimal type and extent of interventions, and they relate this to empirical evidence on the causal effects of changes in social insurance policies. In the spring term, the course is devoted to tax and transfer programs. The course begins by examining the incentive effects of taxes and transfers on labor supply, and then goes on to consider migration, tax avoidance, and tax evasion. As inequality is a key input to tax and transfer policy, we critically examine the measurement of and trends over time in income and wealth inequality in various countries. We look at the effect of taxation on economic efficiency and explore the optimal taxation of commodities and income. Finally, we consider questions of tax administration and apply them in a developing country context.

Why do we need social security? Will the private sector be able to provide them? This course emphasizes the criteria of efficiency and equity, as government plays an important role in performing the function of income redistribution through the social securities. The course also studies the theories and practices of social securities related to income distribution and redistribution. Hence, this course also tries to analyze social security from the viewpoints of welfare economics. In Japan, social security is composed of social insurance and social welfare. There was a huge increase of social security expenditures in Japan with the aging of society following the drastic increase of issuances of national bonds in the early 1990s. We discuss Japanese current systems of social securities, including annuity pensions, health care, and other social welfare programs.

Course objective:

1) The students should learn how to describe games in the formal language of game theory.
2) Students should also learn how to recognize the major strategic considerations and predict the behavior in games using the concepts of game theory.
3) At the end of the course the students should be able to analyze and solve complicated games

This subject is an elective course in management science. Game theory is the mathematical study of multi-person strategic interactions, in which an individual’s success depends on his/her own choice as well as the choices of others. Game theory has applications in many fields, such as politics, economics, biology, and computer science. The goal of this course is to give you a thorough introduction into game theory. The students should learn how to describe games in the formal language of game theory. Students should also learn how to recognize the major strategic considerations and predict the behavior in games using the concepts of game theory. At the end of the course the students should be able to analyze and solve complicated games. We will discuss four classes of games: static games of complete information, dynamic games of complete information, static games of incomplete information and dynamic games of incomplete information. Corresponding to these four classes of games will be four notions of equilibrium in games: Nash equilibrium, subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, Bayesian Nash equilibrium and perfect Bayesian equilibrium. Furthermore, we’ll use many examples related to platform economy to illustrate the basic ideas in this course.