B029727 - PUBLIC ECONOMICS AND POLICIES

English

Few concepts of cognitive psychology and social psychology will be presented as the introduction of the course, because they are useful for understanding the behavioral approach to economics. The rest of the course will focus on the design and evaluation of traditional public policies (health, pensions, education and environmental regulation), comparing the neoclassical approach and behavioral economics.

The material will include a selection of chapters of a public finance handbook, a selection of papers and of reports' chapters, slides provided by Professor Rapallini. Some contents will be illustrated using video of lectures given by the most well-known authors of behavioral economics.

Students should become aware of the role playded by cognitive and social psychology for the effective design of traditional public policies, as well as of the main methodological issues associated with the use of data to evaluate policies.

None

40 hours of lectures and 8 hours for laboratory are foreseen

The final exam will be a written exam that will last one hour of time and it will consist of 5 or 6 concise questions to be answered in a given space. The evaluation of this final exam will count for 2/3 of the final grade. Class presentations by groups of students, short essais and ongoing activities will be schedueled at the start of the course. These activities will be evaluated and they count for 1/3 of the final grade. For those who did not actively participated in the course additional activities (essais, summarizes) will be scheduled to be sent to Professor before recording the final grade.

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12 and 13 of Public Finance, 10th Edition, McGraw-Hill (Global Edition), authors Harvey S. Rosen & Ted Gayer. The full list of additional references will be given by the Instructor at the stat of the course.

4, 11 and 12