ADVANCED PUBLIC ECONOMICS

Curriculum ECONOMICS - QEM / ECONOMIA E FINANZA

Mediante la frequenza delle lezioni frontali e lo studio dei testi di riferimento e del materiale didattico consigliato, il laureato consegue un sistema consolidato di conoscenze e competenze relative:
- alla conoscenza degli strumenti metodologici comunemente utilizzati nella moderna economia applicata per la valutazione delle politiche pubbliche.
- alla conoscenza della teoria della crescita e di geografia economica, e le loro implicazioni di politica economica;
- alla conoscenza del ruolo del settore pubblico nell'economia e le implicazioni delle diverse tipologie di intervento pubblico, con particolare attenzione alla distribuzione spaziale degli interventi pubblici a sostegno dell'economia.
Le conoscenze sopra enucleate vengono accertate attraverso le prove d'esame.

This course combines insights from Public Economics, Development Economics, Spatial Economics and Economic Geography. The course is divided into two main building blocs. The first one will focus on empirical methods for public policy analysis. It will discuss the empirical rationale behind the use of counterfactuals for policy evaluation and present some state-of-the-art quasi-experimental techniques: Regression Discontinuity Design, Difference-in-Differences, Synthetic Control Method. The second part of the course will be dedicated to topics of Economic Geography. It will begin with an overview of key theories of economic growth and development. Building on that, the following lectures will discuss different approaches to public policy intervention in the economy. This section of the course will also focus on the spatial implications of economic policies, distinguishing between place-neutral and place-based policies. Particular attention will be given to the largest transnational place-based policy, i.e. EU Cohesion Policy.

Macroeconomics I; Applied Econometrics I

I. Public Policy Analysis – Counterfactual Evaluation Methods
- Introduction to Counterfactual Policy Evaluation
- Economic Impact of Place-Based Policies
- Political Implications of Place-Based Policies
- Application of DiD, RDD and Synthetic control method
II. Theories of Economic Growth & Location
- Solow Model
- Endogenous Growth Model
- New Institutional Economics
- New Economic Geography
III. Public Policy for Economic Development
- Infrastructure policy
- Innovation policy
- Spatial policies: Place-Based vs. Spatially-Neutral
- EU Cohesion Policy

The material for the course is covered by chapters in:

Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J. S. (2014). Mastering' metrics: The path from cause to effect. Princeton University Press.
Cunningham, S. (2021). Causal Inference. The Mixtape, Yale University Press. Selected chapters.
Romer, D. (2012). Advanced Macroeconomics, fourth edition, McGraw-Hill.

The majority of reading material for the course is made of academic papers from scientific journals. These will be available on the Moodle page for the course. The page will contain references for the additional readings, details on the weakly program and lectures, and other materials.the weakly program and lectures and other materials.

Students’ assessment is based on:
- a written exam paper (85% of the final mark) which contains (2h, closed-book): A) two questions related to the empirical methods learnt in the course; B) two essay-based open-questions to be chosen out of 4.
- an oral presentation (15% of the final mark) to be done in class, on a scientific paper to be chosen among a list proposed by the lecturer.

scritto

The course follows a conventional teaching approach, based on lectures and discussions. At least one session of empirical applications will be done at the end of the lecturing period.

Questo insegnamento tratta argomenti connessi alla macroarea "Povertà e disuguaglianze" e concorre alla realizzazione dei relativi obiettivi ONU dell'Agenda 2030 per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile