Public Finance
Code
2177
Teacher in charge
Susana Peralta
Teaching language
Objectives
This course will endow you with the tools to understand the economics of taxation: why do we have taxes What are their consequences Are there better taxes than others Are there better ways to design taxes The course does not deal with the reasons for government intervention (have mostly been learnt in Microeconomic Policy Analysis: market failure, public goods and externalities), nor with the expenditure side of the public sector(there are several courses devoted to that: education, health, poverty). We will deal with currently important policy issues which you bump into when you open a newspaper: how should the government raise a given amount of taxes What are the efficiency and equity consequences of tax policy What are the main challenges in the design of taxes How are the tax and expenditure responsibilities of the government allocated across government levels in our world of multi‐layered government levels (local, national, supra‐national) We shall discuss issues of coordination and competition, which are also very much in the policy debate nowadays.
Prerequisites
Bibliography
Teaching method
We shall meet twice weekly for 80 min classes. Classes are devoted to the presentation of the material by the instructor and to the discussion and presentation of policy topics by the students.
Two take‐home problem sets will allow the students to learn the concepts and the analytical modeling of the issues. Students will have to read empirical policy evaluation papers and write one report on one of them this will allow them to train their capacity for critical analysis and to derive policy implications from their knowledge. In addition, each student is expected to contribute to the blog https://novaworkboard.wordpress.com/, the blog of the Nova Econ students. There will be a total of 2 contributions throughout the term.