099710 - POLICY ANALYSIS

Giancarlo Vecchi

The main aim of the class is to familiarise the students with the theory and practice of public policy analysis, a political science sub-discipline involved in explaining and predicting the ways in which governments at all levels interact with citizens, firms and other public and private organisations in the solution of collective problems. The class, on the basis of a preliminary analysis of the level of linguistic knowledge of both Italian and foreign students, will be organised as follows: introduction: what is public policy, the evolution of public policies and public administrations. The decision making process: theories (elitism, pluralism, Marxism, neo-corporatism, etc.), models (comprehensive, bounded rationality, incrementalism, garbage can), elements (the actors and their roles, resources, stake, patterns of interaction, environment), network analysis, strategies for successful decisions. Evaluation research: theories and methods (quasi-experimental, participatory, theory based), the concepts of output, impact and outcome, the use of indicators, possible uses in space related policies.

099709 - PUBLIC ECONOMICS

Emmanuel Matsaganis

Public Economics studies the economic role of government, and its consequences. In view of that, it aims to engage systematically with some of the most significant questions of everyday life:

• what government does, and how it affects the economy
• how government choices are made, and how they improve or hinder economic efficiency
• how government can influence the distribution of income and wealth, and whether this is desirable.

Governments intervene in markets either to correct them, when their operation is thought to result in some failure, or to alter the market-driven distribution of resources, when it is considered undesirable.

Governments can affect family incomes (via direct taxes and cash transfers), and the production and delivery of goods and services: both their price (via indirect taxes and price subsidies), and their quantity and quality (via regulation or direct provision).

In Europe, the size of the government sector has grown to almost half of the total size of the economy. In 2014, general government expenditure in the European Union reached 48.2% of GDP in 2014, while general government revenue was 45.2% of GDP. The difference (3% of GDP) was the average public deficit.

Interest in public economics is high – among politicians, the media, and the general public – for mainly two reasons:

• Stakes are extremely large because of broad scope of policies (for instance, tax reforms immediately affect millions of citizens).
• The debate on the appropriate role of government in society is controversial because of underlying differences in political philosophy (e.g. in the US: liberals vs. conservatives; in Europe: centre-left vs centre-right).

Public policy dilemmas – for instance, between (a) lower taxes for families and firms or (b) higher spending on education and health – can be better illuminated through a deeper understanding of the economic issues behind them. This is an indication of the practical value of studying public economics.

The main aim of the course is to provide Politecnico di Milano (i.e. non-economics) students with a better understanding of the theory and practice of public economics.

The structure of the course will be as follows:

1. Introduction: principles of economic analysis, efficiency vs equity, public sector income and expenditure
2. Markets failing to maximise efficiency: public goods, externalities, imperfect competition, asymmetric information
3. Markets failing to meet distributive concerns: social welfare, poverty, inequality
4. Taxation: corporate, income, commodity; tax evasion
5. Multiple jurisdictions: fiscal federalism, fiscal competition
6. Time: intertemporal efficiency, public debt, retirement pensions, growth

099710 - POLICY ANALYSIS

Giancarlo Vecchi

The evaluation for the students attending a minimum of 70% of the classes will be based on:

• a written paper on the analysis of a possible innovative policy in an urban context; the paper will be the outcome of a group-work and the evaluation will include the oral presentation of the project in class;
• an individual paper on the evaluation part of the class.

Students not able to attend the class will have a written examination based on the textbook listed in the bibliography.

099709 - PUBLIC ECONOMICS

Emmanuel Matsaganis

Students will be assessed on the basis of their performance in a written exam at the end of the term.

Abridged English version of the Italian textbook

Enlarged Spanish version of the Italian textbook