OVERVIEW

The Course aims at providing students with analytical tools for studying the public sector economics and the role of the State within the Economy. The course gives students a thorough grounding in the principles underlying the role of the State, the welfare state, and the design of the tax system. The main objective is to enable students to understand the practical problems involved in implementing these principles.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Course aims to analyze public intervention in the economic system, and to provide analytical tools to interpret the main problems related to public economic activity.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The teaching course provides the basic tools to explain the role of the Government in the functioning of the economic system and to understand the economic effects implied by the Public Intervention in the Economy in terms of equity and efficiency.

At the end of the course, the student will have acquired the following learning outcomes.

1) Knowledge and understanding. The student will have acquired adequate knowledge and an effective theoretical and applied to understand: the principles that inform the role of the State in the economy and the methods of intervention in the production of goods and services, in the redistributive and regulatory activity, and to stabilize the economic cycle; the criteria and methodologies for analyzing resource allocation and income distribution, that public intervention generates in the various subjects and on different markets; the criteria and methodologies for the analysis of taxation and the economic principles of taxes

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding. The student will be able to apply the knowledge acquired and to understand and evaluate, with a critical spirit and independent judgment: the effects of public intervention on different markets, in a national and international context; how taxes affect agents' choices, in particular on work and production choices, on organizational, investment, financing and location choices; the main economic effects of alternative hypotheses of structural reforms (tax, pension, health, welfare, etc.)

3) Communication skills. The student will acquire mastery of the technical terminology in order to deal clearly and unambiguously with public administration officials and with all economic subjects that deal with the fiscal and economic variables of expenditure in formulating their decisions.

4) Learning skills. The student will develop learning skills to autonomously investigate the issues related to the extension and effects of public intervention in the economy. The course will offer students different methodologies for assessing economic and fiscal policies with a rigorous formal approach, and graphic analysis. Students will learn and understand how withdrawal and expenditure by the public operator affect the organizational, investment, work, and production choices of the economic system.

PREREQUISITES

Recommended prerequisites are the knowledge of: the basic principles of Microeconomics, the competition system (supply and demand functions); income and substitution effects

TEACHING METHODS

Attendance is recommended. The teaching will include lessons, seminars, lectures, case analyzes, and exercises to be carried out at home and/or in the classroom. Please refer to the AulaWeb teaching platform for any updates.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Part I - The course includes the following topics:

Public Intervention in the Economy

• What are the areas (objectives) for the public operator to intervene. 
• I Theorem of Wellbeing (Efficiency and Allocation) - II Theorem of Wellbeing (Equity and Distribution)
• Efficiency in Collective Consumption
• Economic effects of state intervention on income distribution and the functioning of the economic system - Allocation and Redistribution - Optimal Pareto and Efficiency
• How collective choices are made - Market and Collective Institutions and political decision mechanisms
• Analysis of the framework of public accounts and the Italian tax system

Methods for quantifying the economic effects of taxes: equity and efficiency

• Effects of labor taxes
• Effects of taxes on capital: taxation of companies and financial assets
• International aspects of taxation
• Destination and origin principle for taxation: economic effects
• Taxation of corporations and income from financial activities in the open economy

Redistribution and Welfare State

• Justifications: inequality and poverty as the basis of the concepts of justice and equity that justify redistributive public choices
• Redistributive policies within the welfare state
• Justifications to the Welfare State: the insurance-solidarity principle and the ideology of equality
• The crisis of the welfare state; Social security and assistance: the fields of intervention of the welfare state; the reform of pensions in Italy; new lines of development

Part II: The program also includes specific in-depth studies on the following topics:

•  Natural Monopoly, Regulations, and Pricing
•  The sustainability of the public debt
•  Theoretical models and evasion estimation problems
•  Economic planning

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Information on the textbook and other additional supports (slides, homework texts, ...) will be made available on Aulaweb

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

I semester September-December 2025 according to the caledar pubished on Easyacademy

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The examination consists of a written test. The examination is structured in the form of open questions. Each answer is worth a maximum of 5/30. Each examination paper contains 5 open questions and a numerical exercise, structured on the basis of those given in class. The exercise is worth up to 10/30. The examination is passed if the total score is at least 18/30.

The lecturer reserves the right to conduct a subsequent oral examination if he has doubts or reservations about the overall assessment of the written test.

There is no limit to the number of sessions the student may attend.

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ASSESSMENT METHODS

In order to verify the expected learning outcomes, the exam is structured so as to specifically assess knowledge and understanding and the ability to apply it, autonomy of judgement and communication skills through the formulation of open-ended questions in which the ability to autonomously assess and critically evaluate proposals and choices of public finance and economics inspired by the issues on the agenda of policy makers and in the current economic debate on topics such as the main economic effects of alternative hypotheses of tax reforms and policies (fiscal welfare, income distribution, levy, public spending) implemented at different levels of government (central and local), both from the point of view of equity and efficiency.

Assessment parameters are: quality of the exposition; ability to formalise also in graphical or analytical terms the exposition; use of appropriate technical language; autonomy of thought and ability to make critical judgements.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

No further informaion