ADVANCED PUBLIC ECONOMICS

Public Economics is the study of the public sector and its impact on the economy. The aim of the course is to allow students to conduct apprehensible analyses of the complex relationships which exist between the private economic agents and the public sector in a market economy. The course is divided into various parts covering different approaches to the study of the role and the activities of the public sector in a market economy. The course starts with an introductory lecture on the background of the discipline. Following it presents the classical foundations of welfare economics. It goes on to analyse the processes of collective decision making, both normatively and positively. The course then discusses various issues of the literature on economics inequality, poverty and justice, and the relationships between people ethical preferences and the role of the State in the economy.

Students are expected to become familiar with methods for analysing the function of the public sector and its impact in the economy.

Microeconomics I

A list of the topics covered is:
1. Introduction: Reasons and limits of State intervention in the economy. Methodological issues. Basic facts about State intervention in the history and around the world. Evolution of the field.
2. Welfarist foundations of public sector economics : a general equilibrium approach
; first and second fundamental theorems of welfare economics; 
market failures and public goods; second theorem, social welfare functions and social optimum
; private information and limits to social optimum.

3. From normative to positive public economics: 
Arrow’s theorem and criteria for preferences aggregation; voting and manipulability
; restricted preferences and median voter theorem; models of political economics and the Leviathan view of the State.
4. Inequality, poverty, justice: approaches, definitions, measures; what the numbers tell; models and approaches for State intervention.

The material for the course is covered by chapters in
Hindriks, Jean and Gareth D. Myles, 2013, Intermediate Public Economics, II edition, MIT Press.

- A webpage for the course will be active on the e-learning platform at moodle.unive.it. The page will contain references for additional readings from scientific journals, exercises, details on the weakly program and lectures and other materials.

Students’ assessment is based on a exam paper which contains (1h 30', closed-book): A) one open-question to be chosen out of 4/5; B) two exercises to be chosen out of 3.

The course follows a conventional teaching approach, based on lectures, exercise sessions, and discussions, also based on evidence from experimental economics.

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development