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Dr Kate Smith SAL.3.16 and Dr Xavier Jaravel SAL.3.15

This course is available on the MRes/PhD in Economics and MRes/PhD in Economics and Management. This course is not available as an outside option.

The course will cover the economics of the public sector, including material on taxation, public expenditures and political economics. The course, which covers both theory and empirics, aims to give students a broad overview of this growing field and bring them to the research frontier.

The specific topics covered may vary from year to year. The following are likely to be included:

• Structural methods with applications to public economics questions.

• Externalities and internalities

• Business taxation

• Tax evasion and compliance

• Inequality

• Public goods and public provision of private goods

• Private provision of public goods

Additional topics are explored in Public Economics for Research Students I in the Autumn Term. The two half unit courses are designed to complement each other.

30 hours of lectures in the WT. 

This course is delivered through lectures totalling a minimum of 30 hours in Winter Term. Attendance is compulsory.

Students will discuss papers in lectures.

Readings will be mainly from journal articles; a list will be supplied at the start of the term. Although the course will not be based on a textbook as such, it will make extensive use of:

• Handbook of Public Economics Vol. 1-4 (A.J. Auerbach and M. Feldstein, eds.)
• Lectures in Public Economics, A.B.Atkinson and J.E.Stiglitz, Princeton University Press, 2015.

Clarification of assessment

Coursework (100%) in the WT.

Coursework may include problem sets or other take home assignments, referee reports or a replication exercise.