Economics
Approved course information last updated: 1 year, 7 months ago
Pre-requisites: None
Requisite To: None
Lab Session:
This is an advanced course in public economics designed to expose students to the theory and empirical evidence of the role of government in a market economy. I assume that students are familiar with basic microeconomic theory as well as basic econometric and mathematical tools. We will advance the economic concepts further, apply them in the area of government interventions and test their adequacy in highlighting a number of important empirical cases. We start with a short review of the main theoretical concepts [efficiency, market and government failure, public goods, externalities]. We discuss then the functions of government, its budgeting and spending before proceeding to analyze four broad areas of public economics: social insurance and redistribution; education; health economics; and taxation.
- Clo1. articulate the microeconomic tools for the analysis of government action
- Clo2. use the appropriate economic models to evaluate the performance of government policies
- Clo3. formulate an applied research question; extract relevant information and apply relevant models
- Clo4. make an effective oral presentation, incorporate constructive feedback into their own work, and conduct a critical review of fellow students’ research