Public Sector Economics

4 Credits.

The course analyzes both the role of the state in the economy, including its manifestation as a Welfare State, and the role played in the public sphere by civil society organizations. The first part deals with the theory of market failures and government failures, the theory of collective economic action, the economic theory of democracy, the analysis of tax systems. The second part of the course uses the concepts developed in the first part to analyze specific governmentalinstitutions, expenditure programs and taxes in a comparative international perspective. These include health care (special attention will be devoted to the Covid-19 pandemic), social insurance, redistribution programs, education, the politics of institutional choice, government decentralization (federalism), political capitalism, the digital revolution and the labor market.