Objective
The objective of the course is to familiarize students with Public Economic Analysis, by focusing on specific topics with recent policy applications. For each theme, the theoretical analysis of public economic concepts will be linked with recent empirical research. We will put a specific emphasis on the empirical methods used in public policy evaluation, with a step-by-step critical analysis of selected academic journal articles.

Requirements
Teoria Economia I & II.

Strongly recommended
Sector Public I and Econometria I. Basic knowledge of econometrics is necessary to be able to understand and interpret the results of the empirical papers.

I. Public Intervention and Public Goods

Theme 1. Private provision of public goods (the problem of crowding out between private contributions and public spending)

Theme 2. Public provision of private goods

Theme 3. Education

Theme 4. Health insurance

II. Regulation

Theme 5. Discrimination

Theme 6. Energy Policy (regulation of electricity markets)

III. Taxes and Redistribution

Theme 7. Taxation, Income and Wealth concentration across countries

Theme 8. Taxing the rich (behavioural responses to income taxes)

Theme 9. Welfare programs (responses to “Welfare-to-work” programs)