ECON 308 Public Economics

This course studies the government's role in a market economy, particularly policies that work through government spending and taxation. There are two primary motivations for government intervention: to correct a market failure or to mitigate poverty and inequality through redistribution. The course is organized around these two rationales, with attention to topics that include climate change, public education, health insurance, Social Security, welfare policy, and the taxation of goods, labor, and capital. We study how such government policies impact behavior and, as a consequence, how they should be designed to maximize welfare. This course also introduces students to the modern methodological approach in public economics that tightly connects economic theory with credible empirical evidence to generate policy insights.