Public Economics

lecon2607  2019-2020  Louvain-la-Neuve

Public Economics
Note from June 29, 2020
Although we do not yet know how long the social distancing related to the Covid-19 pandemic will last, and regardless of the changes that had to be made in the evaluation of the June 2020 session in relation to what is provided for in this learning unit description, new learnig unit evaluation methods may still be adopted by the teachers; details of these methods have been - or will be - communicated to the students by the teachers, as soon as possible.
5 credits
30.0 h
Q2
Teacher(s)
Hindriks Jean;
Language
English
Main themes
Part 1 Political economy and public sector 1. Voting 2. Rent seeking and lobbying Part 2 Equity and Redistribution 3. Inequality and poverty Part 3 Taxation 4. Commodity taxation 5. Income taxation Part 4 Multiple jurisdictions 6. Fiscal federalism 7. tax competition Part 5 Issue of time 8. Intertemporal efficiency 9. Social security and pension crisis
Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

1 This course is essentially an evaluation of the role of the public sector in a market economy. The course will use the most recent economic analysis to (re)consider the efficiency and distributive ef-fects of government intervention. The optimal design of government intervention both in terms of public expenditures and tax collection is also studied. The main objective of the course is to strike a balance between political and market failures in determining the form and the extent of government intervention. Students taking this course will acquire: 1 An understanding of the design of public spending and tax collection; 2 An understanding of the tradeoff between equity and efficiency 3 The skill to apply economic analysis to the public sector
 

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
Content
Teaching is by one two-hour lecture twice a week which will present the core theoretical material based on the textbook by Hindriks and Myles "Intermediate Public Economics". Fortnightly two-hour tutorials will consist in solving problems. This should help to develop students' skill and agility in public economics as well as to check their understanding of the course.
Other information
Textbook : Jean Hindriks and Gareth Myles " Intermediate Public Economics " MIT Press 2006 Solutions Manual : Nigar Hashimzade, Jean Hindriks, and Gareth Myles "Solutions manual to Accompany Intermediate Public Economics" MIT press 2006. Power point slide show
Faculty or entity
ECON


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Aims
Master [60] in Economics : General

Master [120] in Agricultural Bioengineering

Master [120] in Economics: Econometrics

Master [120] in Agriculture and Bio-industries

Master [120] in Economics: General